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Clie  nous  of 


Clje  iLotieg  of 

(Sxm  Composers 


Cl)oma0  p.  Ctotocll  &  Co. 
Jl3ett  potfe 


KU 


Copyright,  1904  and  1905 

By  The  Butterick  Publishing  Co.  (Limited) 

Copyright,  1905,  by  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Co. 

Published  September,  1905 


(^\^    ^       hx       ^-^      W«Y>' 


u  &.4J^ 


Composition  and  electrotype  plates  by 
D.  B.  Updike,  The  Merrymount  Press,  Boston 


Co  Cftatles  ©topet 


Cable  of 

Contents 


Page 

Mozart  and  his  Constance  3 

Beethoven  and  his  "Immortal  Beloved"  25 

Mendelssohn  and  his  C^cile  47 
Chopin  and  the  Countess  Delphine  Potocka  71 

The  Schumanns:  Robert  and  Clara  93 

Franz  Liszt  and  his  Carolyne  115 

Wagner  and  Cosima  139 


%ist  of 

illustrations 


Wolfgang  Amadeus  Mozart 

Frontispiece 

(photogravure) 

Page 

Mozart  at  the  Age  of  Eleven 

6 

Constance,  Wife  of  Mozart 

«^  -2-^ 

Ludwig  van  Beethoven 

22 

Countess  Therese  von  Brunswick 

28 

"Beethoven  at  Heiligenstadt" 

40 

Fdix  Mendelssohn-Bartholdy 

48 

Fanny  Hensel,  Sister  of  Mendelssohn 

54 

C^cile,  Wife  of  Mendelssohn 

• 

58 

The  Mendelssohn  Monument  in 

Leipsic 

64 

Fr^ddric  Chopin 

72--^ 

Countess  Potocka 

80 

The  Death  of  Chopin 

86 

Robert  Schumann 

94 

Robert  and  Clara  Schumann,  in 

1847 

98 

Clara  Schumann  at  the  Piano 

106 

IX 


5tt0t  of  3Jllu0ttattons 

The  Schumann  Monument  in  the  Bonn    > 

Cemetery  no 

Franz  Liszt  ii6 

Liszt  at  the  Piano  120 

The  Princess  Carolyne,  in  her  Latter 

Years  at  Rome  124 

The  Altenburg,  Weimar,  where  Liszt 

and  Carolyne  lived  130 

Richard  Wagner  140 

Cosima,  Wife  of  Wagner  146 

Richard  and  Cosima  Wagner  152 

Richard  and  Cosima  Wagner  entertain- 
ing in  their  Home  Wahnfried,  Liszt 
and  Hans  von  Wolzogen  156 


anD  ^19  Constance 


anti  i^t0  Constance 

EARLY  eight  years  after 
Mozart's  death  his  widow, 
in  response  to  a  request 
from  a  famous  publishing 
house  for  relics  of  the  composer,  sent, 
among  other  Mozartiana,  a  packet  of 
letters  written  to  her  by  her  husband. 
In  transmitting  these  she  wrote: 
"  Especially  characteristic  is  his  great 
love  for  me,  which  breathes  through 
all  the  letters.  Is  it  not  true — those 
from  the  last  year  of  his  life  are  just 
as  tender  as  those  written  during  the 
first  year  of  our  marriage?"  She  added 
that  she  would  like  to  have  this  fact 
especially  mentioned  "to  his  honor" 
in  any  biography  in  which  the  data  she 
sent  were  to  be  used.  This  request 
was  not  prompted  by  vanity,  but  by  a 
just  pride  in  the  love  her  husband  had 
borne  her  and  which  she  still  cher- 

3 


CJrHotjes  of 


ished.  The  love  of  his  Constance  was 
the  solace  of  Mozart's  life. 

The  wonder-child,  born  in  Salzburg 
in  1756,  and  taken  by  his  father  from 
court  to  court,  where  he  and  his  sister 
played  to  admiring  audiences,  did  not, 
like  so  many  wonder-children,  fade 
from  public  view,  but  with  manhood 
fulfilled  the  promise  of  his  early  years 
and  became  one  of  the  world's  great 
masters  of  music.  But  his  genius  was 
not  appreciated  until  too  late.  The 
world  of  to-day  sees  in  Mozart  the 
type  of  the  brilliant,  careless  Bohe- 
mian, whom  it  loves  to  associate  with 
art,  and  long  since  has  taken  him  to 
its  heart.  But  the  world  of  his  own  day,' 
when  he  asked  for  bread,  offered  him 
a  stone. 

Mozart  died  young;  he  was  only 
thirty-five.  His  sufferings  were  crowd- 
ed into  a  few  years,  but  throughout 
these  years  there  stood  by  his  side 
one  whose  love  soothed  his  trials  and 
brightened  his  life, — the  Constance 
4 


<5xtat  Compo0er0 

whom  he  adored.  What  she  wrote  to 
the  publishers  was  strictly  true.  His 
last  letters  to  her  breathed  a  love  as 
fervent  as  the  first. 

Some  six  months  before  he  died,  she 
was  obliged  to  go  to  Baden  for  her 
health.  "You  hardly  will  believe,"  he 
writes  to  her,  "how  heavily  time  hangs 
on  my  hands  without  you.  I  cannot  ex- 
actly explain  my  feelings.  There  is  a 
void  that  pains  me ;  a  certain  longing 
that  cannot  be  satisfied,  hence  never 
ceases,  continues  ever,  aye,  grows  from 
day  to  day.  When  I  think  how  happy 
and  childlike  we  would  be  together  in 
Baden  and  what  sad,  tedious  hours 
I  pass  here !  I  take  no  pleasure  in  my 
work,  because  I  cannot  breakit  off  now 
and  then  for  a  few  words  with  you,  as 
I  am  accustomed  to.  When  I  go  to  the 
piano  and  sing  something  from  the 
opera  ["The  Magic  Flute"],  I  have  to 
stop  right  away,  it  affects  me  so.  Basta! 
— if  this  very  hour  I  could  see  my  way 
clear  to  you,  the  next  hour  wouldn't 

5 


Cl)e  5Lot)e0  of 

find  me  here."  In  another  letter  written 
at  this  time  he  kisses  her  "in  thought 
two  thousand  times." 

When  Mozart  first  met  Constance, 
she  was  too  young  to  attract  his  no- 
tice. He  had  stopped  at  Mannheim  on 
his  way  to  Paris,  whither  he  was  going 
with  his  mother  on  a  concert  tour.  Re- 
quiring the  services  of  a  music  copyist, 
he  was  recommended  to  Fridolin  We- 
ber, who  eked  out  a  Hvelihood  by  copy- 
ing music  and  by  acting  as  prompter 
at  the  theatre.  His  brother  was  the  fa- 
ther of  Weber,  the  famous  composer, 
and  his  own  family,  which  consisted  of 
four  daughters,  was  musical.  Mozart*s 
visit  to  Mannheim  occurred  in  1777, 
when  Constance  Weber  was  only  four- 
teen. 

Of  her  two  older  sisters  the  second, 
Aloysia,  had  a  beautiful  voice  and  na 
mean  looks,  and  the  young  genius  was 
greatly  taken  with  her  from  the  first. 
He  induced  his  mother  to  linger  in 
Mannheim  much  longer  than  was  ne- 
6 


MOZART  AT  THE  AGE  OF  ELEVEN 
From  a  painting  by  Van  der  Smissen  in  the  Mozarteum,  Salzburg 


(threat  Composers 

cessary.  Aloysia  became  his  pupil ;  and 
under  his  tuition  her  voice  improved 
wonderfully.  She  achieved  brilliant 
success  in  public,  and  her  father,  de- 
lighted, watched  with  pleasure  the  sen- 
timental attachment  that  was  spring- 
ing up  between  her  and  Mozart.  Mean- 
while Leopold  Mozart  was  in  Salzburg 
wondering  why  his  wife  and  son  were 
so  long  delaying  their  further  journey 
to  Paris. 

When  he  received  from  Wolfgang  let- 
ters full  of  enthusiasm  over  his  pupil, 
coupled  with  a  proposal  that  instead 
of  going  to  Paris,  he  and  his  mother 
should  change  their  destination  to 
Italy  and  take  the  Weber  family  along, 
in  order  that  Aloysia  might  further  de- 
velop her  talents  there,  he  got  an  ink- 
ling of  the  true  state  of  affairs  and  was 
furious.  He  had  large  plans  for  his  son, 
knew  Weber  to  be  shiftless  and  the 
family  poor,  and  concluded  that,  for 
their  own  advantage,  they  were  en- 
deavoring to  trap  Wolfgang  into  a 

7 


Cl)e  JLobes  of 

matrimonial  alliance.  Peremptory  let- 
ters sent  wife  and  son  on  their  way 
to  Paris,  and  the  elder  Mozart  was 
greatly  relieved  when  he  knew  them 
safely  beyond  the  confines  of  Mann- 
heim. 

Mozart's  stay  in  Paris  was  tragically 
brought  to  an  end  by  his  mother's 
death.  He  set  out  for  his  return  to  Salz- 
burg, intending,  however,  to  stop  at 
Mannheim,  for  he  still  remembered 
Aloysia  affectionately.  Finding  that 
the  Weber  family  had  moved  to  Mu- 
nich, he  went  there.  But  as  soon  as  he 
came  into  the  presence  of  the  beautiful 
young  singer  her  manner  showed  that 
her  feelings  toward  him  had  cooled. 
Thereupon,  his  ardor  was  likewise 
chilled,  and  he  continued  on  his  way 
to  Salzburg,  where  he  arrived,  much  to 
his  father's  relief,  still  "unattached." 

When  Mozart  departed  from  Mu- 
nich, he  probably  thought  that  he  was 
leaving  behind  him  forever,  not  only 
the  fickle  Aloysia,  but  the  rest  of  the 
8 


d^reat  Compo0tr0 

Weber  family  as  well.  How  slight  our 
premonition  of  fate !  For,  if  ever  the  in- 
scrutable ways  of  Providence  brought 
two  people  together,  those  two  were 
Mozart  and  Constance  Weber.  Nor 
was  Aloysia  without  further  influence 
on  his  career.  She  married  an  actor 
named  Lange,  with  whom  she  went  to 
Vienna,  where  she  became  a  singer  at 
the  opera.  There  Mozart  composed  for 
her  the  role  of  Constance  in  his  opera, 
"The  Elopement  from  the  Seraglio." 
For  the  eldest  Weber  girl,  Josepha, 
who  had  a  high,  flexible  soprano,  he 
wrote  one  of  his  most  brilliant  roles, 
that  of  the  Queen  of  the  Night  in  "The 
Magic  Flute."  I  am  anticipating  some- 
what in  the  order  of  events  that  I  may 
correct  an  erroneous  impression  re- 
garding Mozart's  marriage,  which  I 
find  frequently  obtains.  He  composed 
the  role  of  Constance  for  Aloysia  shorts 
ly  before  he  married  the  real  Con- 
stance ;  and  this  has  led  many  people 
to  believe  that  he  took  the  younger  sis- 

9 


Clje  3lot)e0  of 

ter  out  of  pique,  because  he  had  been 
rejected  by  Aloysia.  Whoever  believes 
this  has  a  very  superficial  acquain- 
tance with  Mozart's  biography.  Five 
years  had  passed  since  he  had  parted 
from  Aloysia  at  Munich.  The  youthful 
affair  had  blown  over;  and  when  they 
met  again  in  Vienna  she  was  Frau 
Lange.  Mozart's  marriage  with  Con- 
stance was  a  genuine  love-match.  It 
was  bitterly  opposed  by  his  father, 
who  never  became  wholly  reconciled 
to  the  woman  of  his  son's  choice,  and 
met  with  no  favor  from  her  mother. 
Fridolin  Weber  had  died.  Altogether 
the  omens  were  unfavorable,  and  there 
were  obstacles  enough  to  have  dis- 
couraged any  but  the  most  ardent  cou- 
ple. So  much  for  the  pique  story. 

Mozart  went  to  Vienna  in  1781  with 
the  Archbishop  of  Salzburg,  by  whom, 
however,  he  was  treated  with  such  in- 
dignity that  he  left  his  service.  Whom 
should  he  find  in  Vienna  but  his  old 
friends  the  Webers !  Frau  Weber  was 
10 


(threat  Composers 

glad  enough  of  the  opportunity  to  let 
lodgings  to  Mozart,  for,  as  in  Mann- 
heim and  Munich,  the  Ifamily  was  in 
straitened  circumstances.  As  soon  as 
the  composer's  father  heard  of  this  ar- 
rangement, he  began  to  expostulate. 
Finally  Mozart  changed  his  lodgings; 
but  this  step  had  the  very  opposite 
effect  hoped  for  by  Leopold  Mozart, 
for  separation  only  increased  the  love 
that  had  sprung  up  between  the  young 
people  since  they  had  met  again  in 
Vienna,  and  Mozart  had  found  the  lit- 
tle fourteen-year-old  girl  of  his  Mann- 
heim visit  grown  to  young  woman- 
hood. 

There  seems  little  doubt  that  the 
Webers,  with  the  exception  of  Con- 
stance, were  a  shiftless  lot  They  had 
drifted  from  place  to  place  and  had 
finally  come  to  Vienna,  because  Aloy- 
sia  had  moved  therewith  her  husband. 
When  Mozart  finally  decided  to  marry 
Constance,  come  what  might,  he  wrote 
his  father  a  letter  which  shows  that  his 

II 


Cl)e  Jlot)e0  of 

eyes  were  wide  open  to  the  faults  of  the 
family,  and  by  the  calm,  almost  judi- 
cial, manner  in  which  he  refers  to  the 
virtues  of  his  future  wife,  that  his  was 
no  hastily  formed  attachment,  based 
merely  on  superficial  attractions. 

He  does  not  spare  the  family  in  his 
analysis  of  their  traits.  If  he  seems 
ungallant  in  his  references  to  his  fu- 
ture Queen  of  the  Night  and  to  the 
prima  donna  of  his  "Elopement  from 
the  Seraglio,"  to  say  nothing  of  his  for- 
mer attachment  for  her,  one  must  re- 
member that  this  is  a  letter  from  a  son 
to  a  father,  in  which  frankness  is  per- 
missible. He  admits  the  intemperance 
and  shrewishness  of  the  mother;  char- 
acterizes Josepha  as  lazy  and  vulgar; 
calls  Aloysia  a  malicious  person  and 
a  coquette;  dismisses  the  youngest, 
Sophie,  as  too  young  to  be  anything 
but  simply  a  good  though  thoughtless 
creature.  Surely  not  an  attractive  pic- 
ture and  not  a  family  one  would  enter 
lightly. 

12 


(threat  Composers 

What  drew  him  to  Constance?  Let 
him  answer  that  question  himself. 
"But  the  middle  one,  my  good,  dear 
Constance,"  he  writes  to  his  father, 
"  is  a  martyr  among  them,  and  for  that 
reason,  perhaps,  the  best  hearted,  cle- 
verest, and,  in  a  word,  the  best  among 
them.  . .  .  She  is  neither  homely  nor 
beautiful.  Her  whole  beauty  lies  in  two 
small,  dark  eyes  and  in  a  fine  figure. 
She  is  not  brilliant,  but  has  common 
sense  enough  to  perform  her  duties  as 
wife  and  mother.  She  is  not  extrav- 
agant; on  the  contrary,  she  is  accus- 
tomed to  go  poorly  dressed,  because 
what  little  her  mother  can  do  for  her 
children  she  does  for  the  others,  but 
never  for  her.  It  is  true  that  she  would 
like  to  be  tastefully  and  becomingly 
dressed,  but  never  expensively;  and 
most  of  the  things  a  woman  needs  she 
can  make  for  herself.  She  does  her  own 
coiffure  every  day  [head-dress  must 
have  been  something  appalling  in 
those  days];  understands  housekeep- 

13 


C|)e  Hoties  of 


ing;  has  the  best  disposition  in  the 
world.  We  love  each  other  with  all  our 
hearts.  Tell  me  if  I  could  ask  a  better 
wife  for  myself?" 

The  letter  is  so  touchingly  frank  and 
simple  that  whoever  reads  it  must  feel 
that  the  portrait  Mozart  draws  of  his 
Constance  is  absolutely  true  to  life.  He 
makes  no  attempt  to  paint  her  as  a 
paragon  of  beauty  and  intellect.  It  is 
a  picture  of  the  neglected  member  of 
a  household — neglected  because  of 
her  homely  virtues,  the  one  fair  flower 
blooming  in  the  dark  crevice  of  this 
shiftless  manage.  And  at  the  end  of  the 
letter  is  the  one  cry  which,  since  the 
world  was  young,  has  defied  and 
brought  to  naught  the  doubting  coun- 
sels of  wiser  heads:  "We  love  each 
other  with  all  our  hearts." 

The  elder  Mozart,  fearful  for  his  son's 
future,  had  kept  himself  informed  of 
what  was  going  on  in  Vienna.  He  knew 
that  when  his  son's  attentions  to  Con- 
stance became  marked,  her  guardian 
14 


(threat  Compo0er0 

had  compelled  him  to  sign  a  promise  of 
marriage.  In  this  the  father  again  saw 
a  trap  laid  for  his  son,  who  in  worldly 
matters  was  as  unversed  as  a  child.  But 
Leopold  Mozart  did  not  know  how  the 
episode  ended,  and  little  suspected  that 
future  generations  would  see  in  it  one 
of  the  most  charming  incidents  in  the 
love  affairs  of  great  men.  For,  when  her 
guardian  had  left  the  house,  Constance 
asked  her  mother  for  the  paper,  and  as 
soon  as  she  had  it  in  her  hands,  tore  it 
up,  exclaiming:  "Dear  Mozart,  I  do 
not  need  a  written  promise  from  you. 
I  trust  your  words." 
FrauWeber  sawin  Mozart,  the  suitor, 
a  possible  contributor  to  the  house- 
hold expenses,  and  as  soon  as  she 
learned  that  he  and  Constance  in- 
tended to  set  up  for  themselves,  she  be- 
came bitterly  opposed  to  the  match. 
Finally  a  titled  lady.  Baroness  von 
Waldstadter,  took  the  young  people 
under  her  protection,  and  Constance 
went  to  live  with  her  to  escape  her 

15 


Clje  Hotjes?  of 

mother's  nagging.  Frau  Weber  then 
planned  to  force  her daughterto  return 
to  her  by  legal  process.  Immediate  mar- 
riage was  the  only  method  of  escape 
from  the  scandal  this  would  entail ;  and 
so,  August  4, 1782,  Mozart  and  his  Con- 
stance were  married  in  the  Church  of 
St.  Stephen,  Vienna.  When  at  last  they 
had  all  obstacles  behind  them  and 
stood  at  the  altar  as  one,  they  were  so 
overcome  by  their  feelings  that  they 
began  to  cry;  and  the  few  bystanders, 
including  the  priest,  were  so  deeply  af- 
fected by  their  happiness  that  they  too 
were  moved  to  tears. 
Although  poor,  Mozart,  through  his 
music,  had  become  acquainted  with 
titled  personages  and  was  known  at 
court.  He  and  Constance,  shortly  after 
their  wedding,  were  walking  in  the 
Prater  with  their  pet  dog.  To  make  the 
dog  bark,  Mozart  playfully  pretended 
to  strike  Constance  with  his  cane.  At 
that  moment  the  Emperor,  chancing 
to  come  out  of  a  summer  house  and 
16 


(threat  Composers 

seeing  Mozart's  action,  which  he  mis- 
interpreted, began  chiding  him  for 
abusing  his  wife  so  shortly  after  they 
had  been  married.  When  his  mistake 
was  explained  to  him,  he  was  highly 
amused.  Later  he  could  not  fail  to  hear 
of  the  couple's  devotion.  "Vienna  was 
witness  to  these  relations,"  wrote  a 
contemporary  of  Mozart's  and  Con- 
stance's love  for  each  other ;  and  when 
Aloysia  and  her  husband  quarrelled 
and  separated,  the  Emperor,  meeting 
Constance  and  referring  to  her  sister's 
troubles,  said,  "What  a  difference  it 
makes  to  have  a  good  husband." 

In  spite  of  poverty  and  its  attendant 
struggles,  Mozart's  marriage  was  a 
happy  one,  because  it  was  a  marriage 
of  love.  Like  every  child  of  genius,  he 
had  his  moods,  but  Constance  adapted 
herself  to  them  and  thereby  won  his 
confidence  and  gained  an  influence 
over  him  which,  however,  she  brought 
into  play  only  when  the  occasion  de- 
manded. When  he  was  thinking  out  a 

17 


Clje  JLo\its  of 

worky  he  was  absent-minded,  and  at 
such  times  she  always  was  ready  to 
humor  him,  and  even  cut  his  meat  for 
him  at  table,  as  he  was  apt  during  such 
periods  of  abstraction  to  injure  him- 
self. But  when  he  had  a  composition 
well  in  mind,  to  put  it  on  paper  seemed 
little  more  to  him  than  copying;  and 
then  he  loved  to  have  her  sit  by  him 
and  tell  him  stories— yes,  regular  fairy 
tales  and  children's  stories,  as  if  he 
himself  still  were  a  child.  He  would 
write  and  listen,  drop  his  pen  and 
laugh,  and  then  go  on  with  work  again. 
The  day  before  the  first  performance 
of  "Don  Giovanni,"  when  the  final  re- 
hearsal already  had  been  held,  the 
overture  still  remained  unwritten.  It 
had  to  be  written  overnight,  and  it  was 
she  who  sat  by  him  and  relieved  the 
rush  and  strain  of  work  with  her  cheer- 
ful prattle.  It  is  said  that,  among  other 
things,  she  read  to  him  the  story  of 
"Aladdin  and  the  Wonderful  Lamp." 
Be  that  as  it  may;— she  rubbed  the 

i8 


(threat  Composers 

lamp,  and  the  overture  to  "Don  Gio- 
vanni" appeared. 

Would  that  their  life  could  be  por- 
trayed in  a  series  of  such  charming 
pictures!  but  grinding  poverty  was 
there  also,  and  the  bitterness  of  dis- 
appointed hopes.  His  sensitive  nature 
could  not  withstand  the  repeated  ma- 
terial shocks  to  which  it  was  subjected. 
And  the  pity  is,  that  it  gave  way  just 
when  there  seemed  a  prospect  of  a 
change.  "The  Magic  Flute"  had  been 
produced  with  great  success,  and  that 
in  the  face  of  relentless  opposition  from 
envious  rivals;  and  orders  from  new 
sources  and  on  better  terms  were  com- 
ing to  him.  But  the  turn  of  the  tide 
was  too  late.  When  he  received  an  or- 
der for  a  Requiem  from  a  person  who 
wished  his  identity  to  remain  unknown 
— he  was  subsequently  discovered  to 
be  a  nobleman,  who  wanted  to  produce 
the  work  as  his  own — Mozart  already 
felt  the  hand  of  death  upon  him  and  de- 
clared that  he  was  composing  the  Re- 

19 


Clje  3lot)e«  of 

quiem  for  his  own  obsequies.  Even  af- 
ter he  was  obliged  to  take  to  his  bed, 
he  worked  at  it,  saying  it  was  to  be  his 
Requiem  and  must  be  ready  in  time. 
The  afternoon  before  he  died,  he  went 
over  the  completed  portions  with  three 
friends,  and  at  the  Lachrymosa  burst 
into  tears.  In  the  evening  he  lost  con- 
sciousness, and  early  the  following 
morning,  December  5, 1791,  he  passed 
away.  The  immediate  cause  of  death 
was  rheumatic  fever  with  typhoid  com- 
plications, and  his  distracted  widow, 
hoping  to  catch  the  same  disease  and 
be  carried  away  by  it,  threw  herself 
upon  his  bed.  She  was  too  prostrated  to 
attend  his  funeral,  which,  be  it  said  to 
the  shame  of  his  friends,  was  a  shabby 
affair.  The  day  was  stormy,  and  after 
the  service  indoors  they  left  before 
the  actual  burial,  which  was  in  one  of 
the  "common  graves,"  holding  ten 
or  twelve  bodies  and  intended  to  be 
worked  over  every  few  years  for  new 
interments.  When,  as  soon  as  Con- 
20 


CONSTANCE,  WIFE  OF  MOZART 
From  an  engraving  by  Nissen 


<5xtat  Composerff 

stance  was  strong  enough,  she  visited 
the  cemetery  there  was  a  new  grave- 
digger,  who  upon  being  questioned 
could  not  locate  her  husband's  grave, 
and  to  this  day  Mozart's  last  resting- 
place  is  unknown. 

It  must  not  be  reckoned  against  Con- 
stance that,  eighteen  years  after  Mo- 
zart's death,  she  married  again.  For 
she  did  not  forget  the  man  on  whom 
her  heart  first  was  set.  Her  second  hus- 
band, Nissen,  formerly  Danish  charg6 
d'affaires  in  Vienna,  is  best  known  by 
the  biography  of  Mozart  which  he 
wrote  under  her  guidance.  They  re- 
moved to  Mozart's  birthplace,  Salz- 
burg, where  Nissen  died  in  1826.  Con- 
stance's death  was  strangely  associ- 
ated with  Mozart's  memory.  It  was  as 
if  in  her  last  moments  she  must  go 
back  to  him  who  was  her  first  love.  For 
she  died  in  Salzburg,  on  March  6, 1842, 
a  few  hours  after  the  model  for  the  Mo- 
zart monument,  which  adorns  one  of 
the  spacious  squares  of  the  city  where 

21  • 


(Bxtat  Composers 

the  composer  was  born,  was  received 
there.  She  had  been  the  life-love  of  a 
child  of  genius  and,  without  being  sin- 
gularly gifted  herself,  had  understood 
how  to  humor  his  whims  and  adapt 
herself  to  his  moods  in  which  sunshine 
often  was  succeeded  by  shadow.  It  was 
singularly  appropriate  that,  surviving 
him  many  years,  she  yet  died  under  cir- 
cumstances which  formed  a  new  link 
between  her  and  his  memory. 


22 


LUDWIG    VAN    BEETHOVEN. 

After  the  painting  by  Stieler.    The  original  in  the  possession  of  the  Countess 

Rosalie  von  Sauerma,  nee  Spohr,  Berlin 


(( 


31mmottaI  iBelottcD*' 


m% 


iSeetfjoben 

'immortal  mtmth'' 

|NE  day  when  Baron  Spaun, 
an  old  Viennese  character 
and  a  friend  of  Beethoven's, 
entered  the  composer's  lodgT 
ings,  he  found  the  man,  every  line  of 
whose  face  denoted,  above  all  else, 
strength  of  character,  bending  over  a 
portrait  of  a  woman  and  weeping,  as  he 
muttered,  *<  You  were  too  good,  too  an- 
gelic!" A  moment  later,  he  had  thrust 
the  portrait  into  an  old  chest  and,  with 
atoss  of  his  well-set  head,  was  his  usual 
self  again. 

As  Spaun  was  leaving,  he  said  to  the 

composer,  "There  is  nothing  evil  in 

your  face  to-day,  old  fellow." 

"My  good  angel  appeared  to  me  this 

morning,"  was  Beethoven's  reply. 

After  the  composer's  death,  in  1827, 

25 


C|)e  3lot)e0  of 

the  portrait  was  found  in  the  old  chest, 
and  also  aletter,  in  his  handwriting  and 
evidently  written  to  a  woman,  whose 
name,  however,  was  not  given,  but  who 
was  addressed  by  Beethoven  as  his 
*^  Immortal  Beloved."  The  letter  was 
regarded  as  a  great  find,  and  biogra- 
pher after  biographer  has  stated  that 
it  must  have  been  written  to  the  Coun- 
tess Giulietta  Guicciardi,  to  whom  he 
dedicated  the  famous  "Moonhght  So- 
nata." There  was,  however,  one  wo- 
man, who  survived  Beethoven  more 
than  thirty  years,  and  who,  during  that 
weary  stretch  of  time,  knew  whose  was 
the  portrait  that  had  been  found  in  the 
old  chest  and  the  identity  of  the  wo- 
man who  had  returned  to  him  the  let- 
ter addressed  to  his  "Immortal  Be- 
loved," after  the  strange  severance  of 
relations  which  both  had  continued  to 
hold  sacred.  But  she  suffered  in  silence, 
and  nevereven  knew  what  had  become 
of  the  picture. 

This  precious  picture,  which  Beet- 
26 


(threat  Composers 

hoven  had  held  in  his  hands  and  wetted 
with  his  tears,  passed,  with  his  death, 
into  the  possession  of  his  brother  Carl's 
widow.  Nooneknew  whoit  was,  ortook 
any  interest  in  it.  In  1863  a  Viennese 
musician,  Joseph  Hellmesberger,  suc- 
ceeded in  having  Beethoven's  remains 
transferred  to  a  metallic  casket,  and 
the  Beethoven  family,  in  recognition 
of  his  efforts,  made  him  a  present  of  the 
portrait.  Later  it  was  acquired  by  the 
Beethoven  Museum,  in  Bonn,  where 
the  master  was  born  in  1772.  There  it 
hangs  beside  his  own  portrait,  and  on 
the  back  still  can  be  read  the  inscrip- 
tion, in  a  feminine  hand: 
*^To  the  rare  genius,  the  great  artist, 
and  the  good  man,  from  T.  B." 
Who  was  "T.  B."?  If  some  one  who 
had  recently  seen  the  Bonn  portrait 
should  chance  to  visit  the  National 
Museum  in  Budapest,  he  would  come 
upon  the  bust  of  a  woman  whose  fea- 
tures seemed  familiar  to  him.  They 
would  grow  upon  him  as  those  of  the 

27 


Cl)e  JLoljeg  of 

woman  with  the  yellow  shawl  over  her 
light-brown  hair,  a  drapery  of  red  on 
her  shoulders  and  fastened  at  her 
throat,  who  had  looked  out  at  him  from 
the  Bonn  portrait.  The  bust,  made  at  a 
more  advanced  age,  he  would  find  had 
been  placed  in  the  museum  in  honor  of 
the  woman  who  founded  the  first  home 
for  friendless  children  in  the  Austrian 
Empire ;  and  her  name? Countess The- 
rese  Brunswick.  She  was  Beethoven's 
"Immortal  Beloved."  "T.  B."— The- 
rese  Brunswick.  She  was  the  woman 
who  knew  that  the  portrait  found  in  the 
old  chest  was  hers ;  and  that  the  letter 
had  been  received  by  her  shortly  after 
her  secret  betrothal  to  Beethoven,  and 
returned  by  her  to  him  when  he  broke 
the  engagement  because  he  loved  her 
too  deeply  to  link  her  life  to  his. 
The  tragedy  of  their  romance  lay  in  its 
non-fulfilment.  Beethoven  was  a  man 
of  noble  nature,  yet  what  had  he  to  of- 
fer her  in  return  for  her  love?  His  own 
love,  it  is  true.  But  he  was  uncouth, 
28 


^^H 

^^^^H 

Hfejp 

^^^H 

JH 

•  V\ 

^^^^^^^H 

ll^vm 

s^^^^^H 

Vk^ 

-%'  ^^v^pj^^^^^B^KM^^I 

V^. 

/'*!.^^HH^^^^H^^^^^I 

i^^^ 

•^                     'v.Ti-*'^ 

!^.  --^-'^hHHHHIHII 

COUNTESS  THERESE  VON  BRUNSWICK 

From  the  portrait  by  Ritter  von  Lampir  in  the  Beelhoven-Haus  at  Bonn 
Redrawn  by  Reich 


(threat  Composers 

stricken  with  deafness,  and  had  many 
of  the  "bad  moments"  of  genius.  He 
foresaw  unhappiness  for  both,  and,  to 
spare  her,  took  upon  himself  the  great 
act  of  renunciation.  We  need  only  re- 
call him  weeping  over  the  pictureof  his 
Therese.  And  Therese?  To  her  dying 
day  she  treasured  his  memory.  Very 
few  shared  her  secret.  Her  brother 
Franz,  Beethoven's  intimate  friend, 
knew  it.  Baron  Spaun  also  divined  the 
cause  of  his  melancholy.  Some  years 
after  the  composer's  death.  Countess 
Therese  Brunswick  conceived  a  great 
liking  for  a  young  girl,  Miriam  Tenger, 
whom  she  had  taken  under  her  care  for 
a  short  period,  until  a  suitable  school 
was  selected  for  her  in  Vienna.  When 
the  time  for  parting  came,  Miriam 
burst  into  tears  and  clung  to  the  Coun- 
tess's hand. 

"Child!  Child!"  exclaimed  the  lady, 
"do  you  really  love  me  so  deeply?" 

"I  love  you,  I  love  you  so,"  sobbed  the 
child,  "that  I  could  die  for  you." 

29 


C|)e  Holies  of 

The  Countess  placed  her  hand  on  the 
girl's  head. "  My  child,"  she  said,  "when 
you  have  grown  older  and  wiser,  you 
will  understand  what  I  mean  when  I 
say  that  to  live  for  those  we  love  shows 
a  far  greater  love,  because  it  requires 
so  much  more  courage.  But  while  you 
are  in  Vienna,  there  is  one  favor  you 
can  do  me,  which  my  heart  will  consider 
a  great  one.  On  the  twenty-seventh  of 
every  March  go  to  the  Wahringer  Ce- 
metery and  layawreath  of  immortelles 
on  Beethoven's  grave." 

When,  true  to  her  promise,  the  girl 
went  with  her  school  principal  to  the 
cemetery,  they  found  a  man  bending 
over  the  grave  and  placing  flowers  up- 
on it.  He  looked  up  as  they  approached. 

"The  child  comes  at  the  request  of 
the  Countess  Therese  Brunswick,"  ex- 
plained the  principal. 

"The  Countess  Therese  Brunswick ! 
Immortelles  upon  this  grave  are  fit 
from  her  alone.  "The  speaker  was  Beet- 
hoven's faithful  friend,  Baron  Spaun. 
30 


(Bxtat  Compo0erfif 

In  i860,  when  theleavesof  thirty-three 
autumns  had  fallen  upon  the  compo- 
ser's grave  and  the  Countess  had  gone 
to  her  last  resting-place,  a  voice,  like 
an  echo  from  a  dead  past,  linked  the 
names  of  Beethoven  and  the  woman 
he  had  loved.  There  was  at  that  time 
in  Germany  a  virtuosa,  Frau  Heben- 
streit,  who  when  a  young  girl  had  been 
a  pupil  of  Beethoven's  friend,  the  vio- 
linist Schuppanzigh.  At  a  musical,  in 
the  year  mentioned,  she  had  just  ta- 
ken part  in  a  performance  of  the  third 
"Leonore"  overture,  when,  as  if  moved 
to  speak  by  the  beauty  of  the  music, 
she  suddenly  said:  "Only  think  of  it! 
Just  as  a  person  sits  to  a  painter  for  a 
portrait.  Countess  Therese  Brunswick 
was  the  model  for  Beethoven's  Leo- 
nore.  What  a  debt  the  world  owes  her 
for  it!"  After  a  pause  she  went  on: 
"Beethoven  never  would  have  dared 
marry  without  money,  and  a  countess, 
too— and  so  refined,  and  delicate 
enough  to  blow  away.  And  he — an  an- 

31 


C|)e  Ilot)e0  of 

gel  and  a  demon  in  one !  What  would 
have  become  of  them  both,  and  of  his 
genius  with  him  ? ''  So  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  discover,  this  was  the  first  even 
semi-public  linking  of  the  two  names. 

Yet  all  these  years  there  was  one  per- 
son who  knew  the  secret — the  woman 
who  as  a  school-girl  had  placed  the 
wreath  of  immortelles  on  Beethoven's 
grave  for  her  much-loved  Countess 
Therese  Brunswick.  Through  this  act 
of  devotion  Miriam  Tenger  seemed  to 
become  to  the  Countess  a  tie  that 
stretched  back  to  her  past,  and  though 
they  saw  each  other  only  at  long  in- 
tervals, Miriam's  presence  awakened 
anew  the  old  memories  in  the  Coun- 
tess's heart,  and  from  her  she  heard 
piecemeal,  and  with  pauses  of  years 
between,  the  story  of  hers  and  Beet- 
hoven's romance. 

Therese  was  the  daughter  of  a  noble 
house.  Beethoven  was  welcome  both 
as  teacher  and  guest  in  the  most  aris- 
tocratic circles  of  Vienna.  The  noble 
32 


(threat  Compoeerff 

men  and  women  who  figure  in  the  dedi- 
cations of  his  works  were  friends,  not 
merely  patrons.  Despite  his  uncouth 
manners  and  appearance,  his  genius, 
up  to  the  point  at  least  when  it  took 
its  highest  flights  in  the  "Ninth  Sym- 
phony" and  the  last  quartets,  was  ap- 
preciated ;  and  he  was  a  figure  in  Vien- 
nese society.  The  Brunswick  house 
was  one  of  many  that  were  open  to 
him.  The  Brunswicks  were  art  lovers. 
Franz,  the  son  of  the  house,  was  the 
composer's  intimate  friend.  The  mo- 
ther had  all  possible  graciousness  and 
charm,  but  with  it  also  a  passionate 
pride  in  her  family  and  her  rank,  a  hau- 
teur that  would  have  caused  her  to  re- 
gard an  alliance  between  Therese  and 
Beethoven  as  monstrous.  Therese  was 
an  exceptional  woman.  She  had  an 
oval,  classic  face,  a  lovely  disposition, 
a  pure  heart  and  a  finely  cultivated 
mind.  The  German  painter,  Peter  Cor- 
nelius, said  of  her  that  any  one  who 
spoke  with  her  felt  elevated  and  en- 

33 


Cl)e  lLo\its  of 

nobled.  The  family  was  of  the  right 
mettle.  The  Countess  Blanka  Teleki, 
who  was  condemned  to  death  for 
complicity  in  the  Hungarian  uprising 
of  1848,  but  whose  sentence  was  com- 
muted to  life  imprisonment, — she  fi- 
nally was  released  in  1858, — wasThe- 
rese's  niece,  and  is  said  to  have  borne 
a  striking  likeness  to  her.  It  may  be 
mentioned  that  Giulietta  Guicciardi, 
of  the  "Moonlight  Sonata,"  was  The- 
rese's  cousin.  There  seems  no  doubt 
that  the  composer  was  attracted  to 
Giulietta  before  he  fell  in  love  with  his 
"  Immortal  Beloved."  That  is  why  his 
biographers  were  so  ready  to  believe 
that  the  letter  was  addressed  to  the 
lady  with  the  romantic  name  and  iden- 
tified with  one  of  his  most  romantic 
works. 

Therese  herself  told  Miriam  that  one 
day  Giulietta,  who  had  become  the  af- 
fianced of  Count  Gallenberg,  rushed  in- 
to her  room,  threw  herself  at  her  feet 
like  a  "stage  princess,"  and  cried  out: 
34 


(threat  Compo0er0 

"Counsel  me,  cold,  wise  one !  I  long  to 
give  Gallenberg  his  congd  and  marry 
the  wonderfully  ugly,  beautiful  Beet- 
hoven, if — if  only  it  did  not  involve  low- 
ering myself  socially."  Therese,  who 
worshipped  the  composer's  genius  and 
already  loved  him  secretly,  turned  the 
subject  off,  fearful  lest  she  should  say, 
in  her  indignation  at  theyoung  woman 
who  thought  she  would  be  lowering 
herself  by  marrying  Beethoven,  some- 
thing that  might  lead  to  an  irrepara- 
ble breach.  "Moonlight  Sonata," or  no 
"Moonlight  Sonata,"  there  are  two 
greaterworks  by  the  same  genius  that 
bear  the  Brunswick  name, — the  "Ap- 
passionata,"  dedicated  to  Count  Franz 
Brunswick,  and  the  sonata  in  F-sharp 
major.  Opus  78,  dedicated  to  Therese, 
( and  far  worthier  of  her  chaste  beauty 
and  intellect  than  the  "Moonlight." 

It  will  be  noticed  that  Giulietta  called 
Therese  the  "cold,  wise  one."  Her  pu- 
rity led  her  own  mother  to  speak  of  her 
as  an  "anchoress."  Yet  it  was  she  who 

35 


Cl)e  5lot)e0  of 

from  the  time  she  was  fifteen  years  old 
to  the  day  of  her  death  cherished  the 
great  composer  in  her  heart;  and  of  her 
love  for  him  were  the  mementos  that  he 
sacredly  guarded.  When  Therese  was 
fifteen  years  old  she  became  Beetho- 
ven's pupil.  The  lessons  were  severe. 
Yet  beneath  the  rough  exterior  she  re- 
cognized the  heart  of  a  nobleman.  The 
"cold,  wise  one,"  the  "anchoress,"  fell 
in  love  with  him  soon  after  the  lessons 
began,  but  carefully  hid  her  feelings 
from  every  one.  There  is  a  charming 
anecdote  of  the  early  acquaintance  of 
the  composer  and  Therese. 
The  children  of  the  house  of  Bruns- 
wick were  carefully  brought  up.  Dur- 
ing the  music  lessons  the  mother  was 
accustomed  to  sit  in  an  adjoining  room 
with  the  door  between  open.  One  bit- 
terly cold  winter  day  Beethoven  ar- 
rived at  the  appointed  hour.  Therese 
had  practised  diligently,  but  the  work 
was  difficult  and,  in  addition,  she  was 
nervous.  As  a  result  she  began  too  fast, 
36 


(threat  Composers 

became  disconcerted  when  Beethoven 
gruffly  called  out  "Tempoj"  and  made 
mistake  after  mistake,  until  the  mas- 
ter, irritated  beyond  endurance,  rushed 
from  the  room  and  the  house  in  such 
a  hurry  that  he  forgot  his  overcoat 
and  muffler.  In  amomentTherese  had 
picked  up  these,  reached  the  door  and 
was  out  in  the  street  with  them,  when 
the  butler  overtook  her,  relieved  her  of 
them  and  hurried  after  the  composer's 
retreating  figure. 

When  the  girl  entered  the  doorway 
again,  she  came  face  to  face  with  her 
mother,  who,  fortunately,  had  not  seen 
her  in  the  street,  but  who  was  scanda- 
lized that  a  daughter  of  the  house  of 
Brunswick  should  so  far  have  forgot- 
ten herself  and  her  dignity  as  to  have 
run  after  a  man  even  if  only  to  the 
front  door,  and  with  his  overcoat  and 
muffler.  "He  might  have  caught  cold 
and  died,"  gasped  Therese,  in  answer 
to  her  mother's  remonstrance.  What 
would  the  mother  have  said  had  she 

37 


Cl)e  Jlotje0  of 

known  that  her  daughter  actually  had 
run  out  into  the  street,  and  had  been 
prevented  from  following  Beethoven 
until  she  overtook  him  only  by  the  but- 
ler's timely  action ! 

Therese's  brother  Franz  was  devoted 
to  her.  As  a  boy  he  had  taken  his  other 
sister  (afterward  Blanka  Teleki's  mo- 
ther) out  in  a  boat  on  the  "Mediterra- 
nean," one  of  the  ponds  at  Montonva- 
sar,  the  Brunswick  country  estate.  The 
boat  upset.  Therese,  who  was  watch- 
ing them  from  the  bank,  rushed  in  and 
hauled  them  out.  Franz  was  asked  if 
he  had  been  frightened.  "No,"  he  an- 
swered, "I  saw  my  good  angel  com- 
ing." 

When  he  became  intimate  with  Beet- 
hoven, he  told  the  composer  about 
this  incident,  and  also  how,  after  that 
stormy  music  lesson,  Therese  had 
started  to  overtake  him  with  his  coat 
and  muffler.  Knowing  what  a  lonely, 
unhappy  existence  the  composer  led, 
he  could  not  help  adding  that  life  would 
38 


(threat  Composers 

be  very  different  if  he  had  a  good  angel 
to  watch  over  him,  such  as  he  had  in 
his  sister. 

Franz  Uttle  knew  that  his  words  fell 
upon  Beethoven  like  seed  on  eager  soil. 
From  that  time  on  he  looked  at  The- 
rese  with  different  eyes.  His  own  love 
soon  taught  him  to  know  that  he  was 
loved  in  return.  No  pledge  had  yet 
passed  between  them  when,  in  May, 
1806,  he  went  to  Montonvasar  on  a 
visit ;  but  one  evening  there,  whenThe- 
rese  was  standing  at  the  piano  listen- 
ing to  him  play,  he  softly  intoned 
Baches— 

"Would  you  your  true  heart  show  me, 

Begin  it  secretly, 
For  all  the  love  you  trow  me. 

Let  none  the  wiser  be. 
Our  love,  great  beyond  measure, 

To  none  must  we  impart; 
So,  lock  our  rarest  treasure 

Securely  in  your  heart." 

Next  morning  they  met  in  the  park. 
He  told  her  that  at  last  he  had  disco- 


39 


%\^t  JLotjes  of 

vered  in  her  the  model  for  his  Leo- 
nore,  the  heroine  of  his  opera  "Fidelio." 
"And  so  we  found  each  other" — these 
were  the  simple  words  with  which, 
many  years  later,  Therese  concluded 
the  narrative  of  her  betrothal  with 
Beethoven  to  Miriam  Tenger. 

The  engagement  had  to  be  kept  a  se- 
cret. Had  it  become  known,  it  would 
have  ended  in  his  immediate  dismissal 
by  the  Countess*  mother.  In  only  one 
person  was  confidence  reposed,  Franz, 
the  devoted  brother  and  treasured 
friend.  Therese's  income  was  small, 
and  Franz,  knowing  the  opposition 
with  which  the  proposed  match  would 
meet,  pointed  out  to  Beethoven  that  it 
would  be  necessary  for  him  to  secure 
a  settled  position  and  income  before 
the  engagement  could  be  published 
and  the  marriage  take  place.  The  com- 
poser himself  saw  the  justice  of  this, 
and  assented. 

Early  in  July  Beethoven  left  Monton- 
vasar  for  Furen,  a  health  resort  on  the 
40 


(Bxtat  Composers 

Plattensee,  which  he  reached  after  a 
hard  trip.  Fatigued,  grieving  over  the 
first  parting  from  Therese,  and  down- 
cast over  his  uncertain  future,  he  there 
wrote  the  letter  to  his  "Immortal  Be- 
loved," which  is  now  one  of  the  trea- 
sures of  the  Berlin  Library.  It  is  a  long 
letter,  much  too  long  to  be  given  here 
in  full,  written  for  the  most  part  in  ejac- 
ulatory  phrases,  and  curiously  alter- 
nating between  love,  despair,  courage 
and  hopefulness  and  commonplace, 
everyday  affairs.  Nor  will  space  permit 
me  to  tell  how  Alexander  W.  Thayer, 
an  American,  who  spent  a  great  part 
of  his  life  and  means  in  gathering  de- 
tailed and  authentic  data  for  a  Beetho- 
ven biography, — which,  however,  he 
did  not  live  to  finish, — worked  out  the 
year  in  which  this  letter  was  written 
(Beethoven  gave  only  the  day  of  the 
month);  showed  that  it  must  be  1806; 
proved  further  that  it  could  not  have 
been  intended  for  Giulietta  Guicciardi, 
yet  did  not  venture  to  state  that  Count- 

41 


ess  Therese  Brunswick  was  the  un- 
doubted recipient.  Afterward,  I  believe, 
he  heard  of  Miriam  Tenger,  entered 
into  correspondence  with  her,  and  the 
letters  doubtless  will  be  found  among 
his  papers ;  but  he  did  not  live  to  make 
use  of  the  information. 

One  of  the  reasons  why  the  identity 
of  the  recipient  of  Beethoven's  letter 
remained  so  long  unknown  was  that 
he  did  not  address  her  by  name.  The 
letter  begins:  "My  angel,  my  all,  my- 
self!" In  order  to  secure  a  fixed  posi- 
tion, Beethoven  had  decided  to  try 
Prussia  and  even  England,  and  this  in- 
tention he  refers  to  when,  after  apo- 
strophizing Therese  as  his  "immor- 
tal beloved,"  he  writes  these  burning 
words: 

"Yes,  I  have  decided  to  toss  abroad  so 
long,  until  I  can  fly  to  your  arms  and  call 
myself  at  home  with  you,  and  let  my 
soul,  enveloped  in  your  love,  wander 
through  the  kingdom  of  spirits."  The 
letter  has  this  exclamatory  postscript: 
42 


€xmt  Composers 

"Eternally  yours! 
Eternally  mine! 
Eternally  one  another*s!" 

The  engagement  lasted  until  1810,  four 
years,  when  the  letters,  which  through 
Franz's  aid  had  passed  between  Beet- 
hoven and  Therese,  were  returned. 
Therese,  however,  always  treasured 
as  one  of  her  "j  ewels  "  a  sprig  of  immor- 
telle fastened  with  a  ribbon  to  a  bit 
of  paper,  the  ribbon  fading  with  pass- 
ing years,  the  paper  growing  yellow, 
but  still  showing  the  words:  ^^Ulm- 
mortelle  k  son  Immortelle — Luigi." 

It  had  been  Beethoven's  custom  to 
enclose  a  sprig  of  immortelle  in  nearly 
every  letter  he  sent  her,  and  all  these 
sprigs  she  kept  in  her  desk  many,  many 
years.  She  made  a  white  silken  pillow 
of  the  flowers;  and,  when  death  came 
at  last,  she  was  laid  at  rest,  her  head 
cushioned  on  the  mementos  of  the  man 
she  had  loved. 


43 


anD  ^is  Cecile 


anti  ^is  Cettle 


ENDELSSOHN  was  a  pop- 
ular idol.  On  his  death  the 
mournful  news  was  plac- 
arded all  over  Leipsic,  where 
he  had  made  his  home,  and  there  was 
an  immense  funeral  procession.  When 
the  church  service  was  over,  a  woman 
in  deep  mourning  was  led  to  the  bier, 
and  sinking  down  beside  it,  remained 
long  in  prayer.  It  was  Cecile  taking  her 
last  farewell  of  Felix. 

Mendelssohn  was  born  under  a  lucky 
star.  The  pathways  of  most  musical 
geniuses  are  covered  with  thorns ;  his 
was  strewn  with  roses.  The  Mendels- 
sohn family,  originally  Jewish,  was 
well-to-do  and  highly  refined,  and  Fe- 
lix's grandfather  was  a  philosophical 
writer  of  some  note.  This  inspired  the 
oft-quoted  mot  of  the  musician's  fa- 
ther: "Once  I  was  known  as  the  son 

47 


Cl)e 


Hobes;  of 

of  the  famous  Mendelssohn;  now  I  am 
known  as  the  father  of  the  famous 
Mendelssohn." 

Felix  was  an  amazingly  clever,  fasci- 
nating boy.  Coincident  with  his  musi- 
cal gifts  he  had  a  talent  for  art.  Goethe 
was  captivated  by  him,  and  the  many 
distinguished  friends  of  the  Mendels- 
sohn house  in  Berlin  adored  him.  This 
house  was  a  gathering  place  of  artists, 
musicians,  literary  men  and  scientists ; 
his  genius  had  the  stimulus  found  in 
the  "atmosphere "of  such  ahousehold. 
There  was  one  member  of  that  house- 
hold between  whom  and  himself  the 
most  tender  relations  existed,  —  his 
sister  Fanny,  who  became  the  wife  of 
Hensel,  the  artist.  The  musical  tastes 
of  Felix  and  Fanny  were  alike:  she  was 
the  confidante  of  his  ambitions,  and 
thus  was  created  between  them  an 
artistic  sympathy,  which  from  child- 
hood greatly  strengthened  the  family 
bond.  Growing  up  amid  love  and  de- 
votion, to  say  nothing  of  the  admira- 
48 


FELIX  MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 


<^reat  Composers 

tion  accorded  his  genius  in  the  home 
circle,  with  tastes,  naturally  refined, 
cultivated  to  the  utmost  both  by  edu- 
cation and  absorption,  he  was  apt  to 
be  most  fastidious  in  the  choice  of 
a  wife.  Fastidiousness  in  everything 
was,  in  fact,  one  of  his  traits.  One  has 
but  to  recall  how,  one  after  another,  he 
rejected  the  subjects  thatwere  offered 
him  for  operatic  composition.  '^I  am 
afraid,"  said  his  father,  who  was  quite 
anxious  to  see  his  famous  son  properly 
settled  in  life,  "that  Felix's  censorious- 
ness  will  prevent  his  getting  a  wife  as 
well  as  a  libretto." 

It  may  have  been  a  regretful  feeling 
that  he  had  disappointed  his  father  by 
not  marrying  which  led  him,  after  the 
latter's  sudden  death  in  November, 
1835,  to  consider  the  matter  more  se- 
riously. He  hastened  to  Berlin  to  his 
mother,  and  then  returned  to  Leipsic, 
where  he  had  charge  of  the  famous  Ge- 
wandhaus  concerts.  He  settled  down 
to  work  again,  and  especially  to  finish 

49 


Clje  Joints  of 

his  oratorio  of  "St.  Paul."  In  March, 
1836,  the  University  of  Leipsic  made 
him  a  Ph.D. 
In  May  or  June  of  this  year  a  friend 
and  colleague  named  Schelble,  who 
conducted  the  Csecilia  Singing  Society 
at  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  was  taken 
ill,  and,  desiring  to  rest  and  recuper- 
ate, asked  Mendelssohn  to  officiate  in 
his  place.  The  request  came  at  an  in- 
convenient time,  for  he  had  planned  to 
take  some  recreation  himself,  and  had 
mapped  out  a  tour  to  Switzerland  and 
Genoa.  But  Felix  was  an  obliging  fel- 
low, and  promptly  responded  with  an 
affirmative  when  his  colleague  called 
upon  him  for  aid.  The  unselfish  relin- 
quishment of  his  intended  tour  was  to 
meet  with  a  further  reward  than  that 
which  comes  from  the  satisfaction  of  a 
good  deed  done  at  some  self-sacrifice, 
and  this  reward  was  the  more  grateful 
because  unexpected  by  his  friends,  his 
family,  or  even  himself.  Yet  it  was  de- 
stined to  delight  them  all. 
50 


(threat  Compo0er0 

Felix  was  in  Frankfort  six  weeks.  So 
short  a  period  rarely  leads  to  a  decisive 
event  in  a  man's  life,  but  did  so  in  Men- 
delssohn's case.  He  occupied  lodgings 
in  a  house  on  the  Schone  Aussicht 
(Beautiful  View),  with  an  outlook  upon 
the  river.  But  there  was  another  beau- 
tiful view  in  Frankfort  which  occupied 
his  attention  far  more,  for  among  those 
he  met  during  his  sojourn  in  the  city 
on  the  Main  was  C6cile, — C6cile  Char- 
lotte Sophie  Jeanrenaud.  Her  father, 
long  dead,  had  been  the  pastor  of  the 
French  Walloon  Reformed  Church  in 
Frankfort,  where  his  widow  and  chil- 
dren moved  in  the  best  social  circles 
of  the  city.  C6cile,  then  seventeen  (ten 
years  younger  than  Felix),  was  a 
"beauty"  of  amostdelicate  type.  Mme. 
Jeanrenaud  still  was  a  fine-looking 
woman,  and  possibly  because  of  this 
fact,  coupled  with  Felix's  shy  manner 
in  the  presence  of  Cecile,  now  that 
for  the  first  time  his  heart  was  deeply 
touched,  it  was  at  first  supposed  that 

51 


C|)e  lLo\its  of 

he  was  courting  the  mother;  and  her 
children,  C6cile  included,  twitted  her 
on  it. 
Now  Felix  acted  in  a  manner  char- 
acteristic of  his  bringing  up  and  of  the 
bent  of  his  genius.  Mozart,  Beethoven, 
Chopin,  Schumann,  Liszt,  Wagner — 
not  one  of  these  hesitated  a  moment 
where  his  heart  was  concerned.  If  any- 
thing, they  were  too  impetuous.  They 
are  the  masters  of  the  passionate  ex- 
pression in  music;  Mendelssohn's  mu- 
sic is  of  the  refined,  delicate  type — like 
his  own  bringing  up.  The  perfectly 
polished  "Songs  without  Words,"  the 
smoothlyflowingsymphonies,thelyric 
violin  concerto — these  are  most  typi- 
cal of  his  genius.  Only  here  and  there 
in  his  works  are  there  fitful  flashes  of 
deeper  significance,  as  in  certain  dra- 
matic passages  of  the  "Elijah"  orato- 
rio. And  so,  when  Felix  found  himself 
possessed  of  a  passion  for  Cecile  Jean- 
renaud,  the  beautiful,  he  did  not  throw 
himself  at  her  feet  and  pour  out  a  con- 
52 


(threat  Compofiftr0 

fession  of  love  to  her.  Far  from  it.  With 
a  calmness  that  would  make  one  feel 
like  pinching  him,  were  it  not  that  af- 
ter all  the  story  has  a  "happy  ending," 
he  left  Frankfort  at  the  end  of  six 
weeks,  when  his  feelings  were  at  their 
height,  and  in  order  to  submit  the 
state  of  his  affections  to  a  cool  and  un- 
prejudiced scrutiny,  he  went  to  Sche- 
veningen,  Holland,  where  he  spent  a 
month.  Anything  more  characteristi- 
cally Mendelssohnian  can  scarcely  be 
imagined  than  this  leisurely  passing 
of  judgment  on  his  own  heart. 
JustwhatC6cilethoughtofhissudden 
departure  we  do  not  know.  No  doubt  by 
that  time  she  had  ceased  twitting  her 
mother  on  Felixes  supposed  intentions 
to  make  Frau  Mendelssohn  of  Mme. 
Jeanrenaud,  for  it  must  have  become 
apparent  that  the  attentions  of  the  fa- 
mous composer  were  not  directed  to- 
ward the  beautiful  mother,  but  toward 
the  more  beautiful  daughter.  If,  how- 
ever, she  felt  at  all  uneasy  at  his  go- 

53 


Cl)e  HoMtsi  of 

ing  away  at  the  time  when  he  should 
have  been  preparing  to  declare  himself, 
her  doubts  would  have  been  dispelled 
could  she  have  read  some  of  the  letters 
which  he  dispatched  from  Scheven- 
ingen.That  she  herself  was  captivated 
by  him  there  seems  no  doubt.  It  was 
an  amusing  change  from  her  precon- 
ceived notion  of  him.  She  had  ima- 
gined him  a  stiff,  disagreeable,  jeal- 
ous old  man,  who  wore  a  green  velvet 
skull-cap  and  played  tedious  fugues. 
This  prejudice,  needless  to  say,  was 
dispelled  at  their  first  meeting,  when 
she  found  the  crabbed  creation  of  her 
fancy  a  man  of  the  world,  with  gra- 
cious, winning  manners,  and  a  brilliant 
conversationalist  not  only  on  music, 
but  also  on  other  topics. 
It  is  a  curious  coincidence  that  when 
Felix  left  Frankfort  for  Scheveningen, 
with  the  image  of  this  fair  being  in  his 
heart,  the  Caecilia  Society  should  have 
presented  him  with  a  handsome  dress- 
ing-case marked  "F.  M.-B.  and  Cae- 
54 


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B 

^^^^^1^^^^ 

^^^B 

I^^^^^^^^^^^^B^'   ''^V^ '      M 

^^^^K^'^H 

^^^^ 

^l^i*^ 

''«r        .^m                          ~^^^^H 

' 

/^■H^H 

rM^m^^M 

g_^ 

FANNY  HENSEL,   SISTER  OF  MENDELSSOHN 


d^reat  Compo0er0 

cilia-"'  He  had  come  to  Frankfort  to 
conduct  the  Cascilia ;  he  had  met  Cseci- 
lia;  and  now  he  was  at  the  last  mo- 
ment reminded  that  he  was  leaving 
Caecilia  behind;  yet  he  was  carrying 
Caecilia  with  him.  If  there  is  anything 
prophetic  in  coincidences,  everything 
pointed  to  the  fact  that  Caecilia  was  to 
play  a  more  prominent  part  in  his  life 
than  that  of  a  mere  name. 

Even  before  Felix  left  Frankfort  there 
were  some  who  were  in  his  secret.  Evi- 
dently the  Mendelssohn  family  had  re- 
ceived reports  of  his  attentions  to  the 
fair  C6cile  Jeanrenaud  and  were  all 
a-flutter  with  happy  anticipation.  For 
there  is  a  letter  from  Felix  to  his  sister 
Rebecca  which  must  have  been  writ- 
ten in  answer  to  one  from  her  contain- 
ing something  in  the  nature  of  an  in- 
quiry regarding  the  state  of  his  feel- 
ings. "The  present  period  in  my  life," 

«  The  "-B"  on  the  dressing-case  stands  for  "-Bartholdy." 
When  the  Mendelssohn  family  changed  from  Judaism  to 
Protestantism,  it  added  the  mother's  family  name. 

55 


Clje  5Lot)e0  of 

he  writes  to  her,  "is  avery  strange  one, 
for  I  am  more  desperately  in  love  than 
I  ever  was  before,  and  I  do  not  know 
what  to  do.  I  leave  Frankfort  the  day 
after  to-morrow,  but  I  feel  as  if  it  would 
cost  me  my  life.  At  all  events  I  intend 
to  return  here  and  see  this  charming 
girl  once  more  before  I  go  back  to  Leip- 
sic.  But  I  have  not  an  idea  whether  she 
likes  me  or  not,  and  I  do  not  know  what 
to  do  to  make  her  like  me,  as  I  already 
have  said.  But  one  thing  is  certain— 
that  to  her  I  owe  the  first  real  happi- 
ness 1  have  had  this  year,  and  now  I 
feel  fresh  and  hopeful  again  for  the  first 
time.  When  away  from  her,  though,  I 
always  am  sad — now,  you  see,  I  have 
let  you  into  a  secret  which  nobody  else 
knows  anything  about;  but  in  order 
that  you  may  set  the  whole  world  an 
example  in  discretion,  I  will  tell  you 
nothing  more  about  it."  He  adds  that 
he  is  going  to  detest  the  seashore,  and 
ends  with  the  exclamation,  "O  Rebec- 
ca! What  shall  I  do?"  Rebecca  might 
56 


(threat  Compo^er^ 

have  answered,  "Tell  C6cile,  instead  of 
me;"  and,  indeed,  I  wonder  if  she  did 
not  take  occasion  to  drop  a  few  hint^ 
to  C6cile  during  her  brother's  absence 
in  Holland. 

There  was  another  who  might  have 
told  C^cile  how  Felix  felt  toward  her, 
— his  mother.  For  to  her  he  wrote  from 
Scheveningen.  that  he  gladly  would 
send  Holland,  its  dykes,  sea  baths, 
bathing-machines,  Kursaals  and  visir 
tors  to  the  end  of  the  world  to  be  back 
in  Frankfort.  "When  I  have  seen  this 
charming  girl  again,  I  hope  the  sus- 
pense soon  will  be  over  and  I  shall 
know  whether  we  are  to  be  anything 
— or  rather  everything — to  each  other, 
or  not."  Evidently  his  scrutiny  of  his 
own  feelings  was  leading  him  to  a  very 
definite  conclusion.  He  was  in  Sche- 
veningen, but  his  heart  was  in  the  city 
on  the  Main,  and  he  was  wishing  him- 
self back  in  the  Schone  Aussicht  — 
longing  for  that  "beautiful  view"  once 
more. 

57 


C|)e  JLotje0  of 

Back  to  Frankfort  he  hied  himself  as 
soon  as  the  month  in  Holland  was  hap- 
pily over.  It  was  not  only  back  to  Frank- 
fort,it  was  backtoC6cile,inevery  sense 
of  the  words ;  for  if  Rebecca  and  his  mo- 
ther had  not  conveyed  to  the  delicate 
beauty  some  suggestion  of  the  feelings 
she  had  inspired  in  Felix's  heart,  she 
herself  must  have  become  aware  of 
them,  and  of  something  very  much  like 
in  her  own,  since  matters  were  not  long 
in  coming  to  a  point  after  his  return. 
He  spent  August  at  Scheveningen ; 
in  September  his  suspense  was  over, 
for  his  engagement  to  Cecile  formally 
took  place  at  Kronberg,  near  Frank- 
fort. Three  weeks  later  he  was  obliged 
to  go  back  to  his  duties  at  Leipsic. 
How  much  he  was  beloved  by  the  pub- 
lic appears  from  the  fact  that  at  the 
next  Gewandhaus  concert  the  direc- 
tors placed  on  the  programme,  "  Wer 
ein  Holdes  Weib  Errungen"  (He  who 
a  Lovely  Wife  has  Won)  from  "Fide- 
lio,"  and  that  when  the  number  was 
58 


CECILE,  WIFE  OF  MENDELSSOHN 


d^reat  Composers 

reached,  and  Felix  raised  his  b^ton, 
the  audience  burst  into  applause  which 
continued  a  long  time.  It  was  their 
congratulations  to  their  idol  on  his  be- 
trothal. 

"Les  Feliciens"  was  the  title  given 
to  Felix  and  C6cile  by  his  sister  Fanny 
later  in  life.  At  this  time  Mendelssohn 
himself  was  indescribably  happy.  At 
least,  he  could  not  himself  find  words  in 
which  to  express  all  he  felt.  It  is  plea- 
sant to  find  that  a  great  composer  is  no 
exception  to  the  rule  which  makes  lov- 
ers "too  happy  for  words."  "But  what 
words  am  I  to  use  in  describing  my 
happiness?"  he  writes  to  his  sister.  "I 
do  not  know  and  am  dumb,  but  not  for 
the  same  reason  as  the  monkeys  on  the 
Orinoco — far  from  it." 

We  gain  an  ideaof  C6cile's  social  posi- 
tion from  Felix's  statement,  contained 
in  this  same  letter,  that  he  and  his  fian- 
cee are  obliged  to  make  one  hundred 
and  sixty-three  calls  in  Frankfort. This 
was  written  before  he  had  returned  to 

59 


Clje  iloljesf  of 

his  duties  in  Leipsic.  Christmas  again 
found  him  with  his  betrothed  and  again 
writing  to  Fanny — this  time  about  a 
portrait  of  C6cile,  which  her  family  had 
given  him.  "They  gave  me  a  portrait 
of  her  on  Christmas,  but  it  only  stirred 
up  afresh  my  wrath  against  all  bad  art- 
ists. She  looks  like  an  ordinary  young 
woman  flattered."  (Rather  a  good  bit 
of  criticism.)  "It  really  is  too  bad  that 
with  such  a  sitter  the  fellow  could  not 
have  shown  a  spark  of  poetry."  It  is 
quite  evident  that  Felix  was  much  in 
love  with  his  fair  fianc6e. 

He  and  C6cile  were  married  in  her 
father^s  former  church  in  March,  1837. 
During  their  honeymoon  Felix  wrote 
to  his  friend,  Eduard  Devrient,  the  fa- 
mous actor,  from  the  Bavarian  high- 
lands. A  rare  spirit  of  peace  and  con- 
tentment breathes  through  the  letter. 
"You  know  that  I  am  here  with  my 
wife,  my  dear  C6cile,  and  that  it  is  our 
wedding  tour;  that  we  already  are  an 
old  married  couple  of  six  weeks' stand- 
60 


(threat  Compo0er0 

ing.  There  is  so  much  to  tell  you  that 
I  know  not  how  to  make  a  beginning. 
Picture  it  to  yourself.  I  can  only  say 
that  I  am  too  happy,  too  glad;  and  yet 
not  at  all  beside  myself,  as  I  should  have 
expected  to  be,  but  calm  and  accus- 
tomed, as  though  it  could  not  be  other- 
wise. But  you  should  knowmy  C6cile!" 
Evidently  such  a  love  as  was  here  de- 
scribed was  not  a  mere  sentimental 
flash  in  the  pan.  It  was  an  affection 
founded  on  reciprocal  tastes  and  sym- 
pathies, the  kind  that  usually  lasts. 
C6cile  was  refined  and  delicate,  and 
beautiful.  She  was  just  the  woman  to 
grace  the  home  that  a  fastidious  man 
like  Mendelssohn  would  want  to  esta- 
bUsh. 

The  most  insistent  note  to  be  ob- 
served in  his  correspondence  from  this 
time  on  is  that  of  a  desire  to  remain 
within  his  own  four  walls.  Fanny  had 
been  advised  to  go  to  the  seashore  for 
her  health,  but  had  delayed  doing  so 
because  loath  to  leave  her  husband. 

6i 


Clje  JLotits  of 


<< 


Think  of  me,"  writes  Felix,  urging 
her  to  go,  "who  must  in  a  few  weeks, 
though  we  have  not  been  married  four 
months  yet,  leave  Cecile  here  and  go 
to  England  by  myself —  all,  too,  for  the 
sake  of  a  music  festival.  Gracious  me! 
All  this  is  no  joke.  But  possibly  the 
death  of  the  King  of  England  will  in- 
tervene and  put  a  stop  to  the  whole 
project."  The  life  of  a  king  meant  little 
to  Felix  in  the  distressing  prospect  of 
being  obliged  to  leave  his  Cecile.  Felix, 
the  husband,  was  not  as  eager  to  travel 
as  Felix,  the  bachelor,  had  been. 
There  are  various  "appreciations"  of 
Cecile.  The  least  enthusiastic,  per- 
haps, is  that  of  Hensel,  Felix's  brother- 
in-law.  He  says  that  she  was  not  a 
striking  person  in  anyway,  neither  ex- 
traordinarily clever,  brilliantly  witty, 
nor  exceptionally  accomplished.  But 
to  this  somewhat  indefinite  observa- 
tion he  adds  that  she  exerted  an  influ- 
ence as  soothing  as  that  of  the  open 
sky,  or  running  water.  I  ndeed,  H  ensel's 
62 


(threat  Composers 

first  frigid  reserve  yielded  to  the  opin- 
ion that  C^cile's  gentleness  and  bright- 
ness made  Felixes  life  one  continued 
course  of  happiness  to  the  end.  It  was 
some  time  after  the  marriage  before 
Mendelssohn's  sisters  saw  C6cile  for 
the  first  time.  The  good  they  heard  of 
her  made  them  the  more  impatient  to 
meet  her.  "I  tell  you  candidly,"  the 
clever  Fanny  writes  to  her,  "that  by 
this  time,  when  anybody  comes  to  talk 
to  me  about  your  beauty  and  your  eyes, 
it  makes  me  quite  cross.  I  have  had 
enough  of  hearsay,  and  beautiful  eyes 
were  not  made  to  be  heard."  When  at 
last  Fanny  did  see  C6cile,  this  fond 
sister  of  Felix's,  who  naturally  would 
be  most  critical,  was  enthusiastic  over 
her.  "She  is  amiable,  simple,  fresh, 
happy  and  even-tempered,  and  I  con- 
sider Felix  most  fortunate.  For  though 
loving  him  inexpressibly,  she  does  not 
spoil  him,  but  when  he  is  moody,  meets 
him  with  a  self-restraint  which  in  due 
course  of  time  will  cure  him  of  his  mood- 

63 


Cl)e  JLotits  of 

iness  altogether.  The  effect  of  her  pre- 
sence is  like  that  of  afresh  breeze,  she 
is  so  light  and  bright  and  natural.'' 
To  my  mind,  however,  Devrient  has 
drawn  the  bestword  portraitof  her.  Af- 
ter their  first  meeting  he  wrote : "  How 
often  we  had  pictured  the  kind  of  wo- 
man that  would  be  a  true  second  half 
to  Felix;  and  now  the  lovely,  gentle 
being  was  before  us,  whose  glance  and 
smile  alone  promised  all  that  we  could 
desire  for  the  happiness  of  our  spoilt 
favorite."  Later,  Devrient  finished  the 
picture :  "C6cile  was  one  of  those  sweet, 
womanly  natures  whose  gentle  sim- 
plicity, whose  mere  presence,  soothed 
and  pleased.  She  was  slender,  with 
strikingly  beautiful  and  delicate  fea- 
tures; her hairwas  between  brown  and 
gold;  but  the  transcendent  lustre  of  her 
great  blue  eyes,  and  the  brilliant  roses 
on  her  cheeks,  were  sad  harbingers  of 
early  death.  She  spoke  little  and  never 
with  animation,  and  in  a  low,  soft  voice. 
Shakespeare's  words,  'my  gracious  si- 
64 


THE   MENDELSSOHN   MONUMENT  IN   LEIPSIG 


(threat  Composers 

lence/  applied  to  her,  no  less  than  to 
Cordelia." 

Thus,  while  C6cile  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  an  extraordinarily  gifted 
woman  from  an  artistic  or  intellectual 
point  of  view,  it  is  quite  evident  that 
she  possessed  a  refinement  that  must 
have  appealed  forcibly  to  a  man  brought 
up  in  such  genteel  surroundings  and 
as  sensitive  as  Mendelssohn.  Such  a 
woman  must  have  been,  after  all,  bet- 
ter suited  to  his  delicate  genius  than  a 
wife  of  unusual  gifts  would  have  been. 
For  it  is  a  helpmeet,  not  another  ge- 
nius, that  a  man  of  genius  really  needs 
most.  The  woman  who,  without  being 
prosy  or  commonplace  and  without  al- 
lowing herself  to  retrograde  in  looks 
or  in  personal  care,  can  run  a  house- 
hold in  a  systematic,  orderly  fashion  is 
the  greatest  blessing  that  Providence 
can  bestow  upon  genius.  Evidently  C6- 
cile  was  just  such  a  woman.  Her  tact 
seems  to  have  been  as  delicate  as  her 
beauty.  Without,  perhaps,  having  di- 

65 


d)e  ILotje0  of 

rectly  inspired  any  composition  of  her 
husband's,  her  gentleness,  her  simple 
grace,  doubtless  left  their  mark  on 
many  bars  of  his  music. 

It  seems  doubly  cruel  that  death 
should  have  cut  Felix  down  when  he 
had  enjoyed  but  ten  happy  years  with 
his  C6cile.  Yet  had  his  life  been  long, 
thepangof  separation  would  soon  have 
come  to  him.  Devrient  had  not  been 
mistaken  when  he  spoke  of  "those  sad 
harbingers  of  early  death ;"  and  Cecile 
survived  Felix  scarcely  five  years. 

Felix's  death  occurred  at  Leipsic  in 
1847.  In  September,  while  listening  to 
his  own  recently  composed  "Nacht 
Lied"  he  swooned  away.  His  system, 
weakened  by  overwork,  succumbed, 
nervous  prostration  followed,  and  on 
November4he  died.  Sudden  death  had 
carried  off  his  grandfather,  father,  mo- 
ther and  favorite  sister;  and  he  had  a 
presentiment  that  his  end  would  come 
about  in  the  same  way.  During  the  dull 
half-sleep  preceding  death  he  spoke 
66 


d^reat  Compoeers 

but  once,  and  then  to  C6cile  in  answer 
to  her  inquiry  how  he  felt — "Tired, 
very  tired." 

Devrient  tells  how  he  went  to  the 
house  of  mutual  friends  in  Dresden 
for  news  of  Mendelssohn's  condition, 
when  Clara  Schumann  came  in,  a  let- 
ter in  her  hand  and  weeping,  and  told 
them  that  Felix  had  died  the  previous 
evening.  Devrient  hastened  to  Leipsic, 
and  C6cile  sent  for  him.  I  cannot  close 
this  article  more  fittingly  than  with  his 
description  of  their  meeting  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  illustrious  dead — the  cher- 
ished friend  of  one,  the  husband  of  the 
other. 

"She  received  me  with  the  tender- 
ness of  a  sister,  wept  in  silence,  and 
was  calm  and  composed  as  ever.  She 
thanked  me  for  all  the  love  and  devo- 
tion I  had  shown  to  her  Felix,  grieved 
for  me  that  I  should  have  to  mourn  so 
faithful  a  friend,  and  spoke  of  the  love 
with  which  Felix  always  had  regarded 
me.  Long  we  spoke  of  him ;  it  comforted 

67 


C|)e  lUtjes  of 

her,  and  she  was  loath  for  me  to  de- 
part. She  was  most  unpretentious  in 
her  sorrow,  gentle,  and  resigned  to  live 
for  the  care  and  education  of  her  chil- 
dren. She  said  God  would  help  her,  and 
surely  her  boys  would  have  the  inher- 
itance of  some  of  their  father's  genius. 
There  could  not  be  a  more  worthy 
memory  of  him  than  the  well-balanced, 
strong  and  tender  heart  of  this  mourn- 
ing widow." 


68 


anO  tfyt  Countess  Delpfiine  Potodta 


Cftopttt 

anti  ti^e 

Counters  SDelp|)ine  i^otocfta 

lER  voice  was  destined  to  be 
the  last  which  should  vibrate 
upon  the  musician's  heart. 
Perhaps  the  sweetest  sounds 
of  earth  accompanied  the  parting  soul 
until  they  blended  in  his  ear  with  the 
first  chords  of  the  angels'  lyres." 

It  is  thus  Liszt  describes  the  voice 
of  Countess  Delphine  Potocka  as  it 
vibrated  through  the  room  in  which 
Chopin  lay  dying.  Witnesses  disagree 
regarding  details.  One  of  the  small 
company  that  gathered  about  his  bed 
says  she  sang  but  once,  others  that  she 
sang  twice ;  and  even  these  vary  when 
they  name  the  compositions.  Yet  how- 
ever they  may  differ  on  these  minor 
points,  they  agree  as  to  the  main  in- 
cident That  the  beautiful  Delphine 

71 


C!)e  JLotjeg  of 


sang  for  the  dying  Chopin  is  not  a  mere 
pleasing  tradition;  it  is  a  fact.  Her 
voice  ravished  the  ear  of  the  great  com- 
poser, whose  life  was  ebbing  away,  and 
soothed  his  last  hours. 

"Therefore,  then,  has  God  so  long  de- 
layed to  call  me  to  Him.  He  wanted  to 
vouchsafe  me  the  joy  of  seeing  you." 
These  were  the  words  Chopin  whis- 
pered when  he  opened  his  eyes  and  saw, 
beside  his  sister  Louise,  the  Countess 
Delphine  Potocka,  who  had  hurried 
from  a  distance  as  soon  as  she  was  noti- 
fied that  his  end  was  drawing  near.  She 
was  one  of  those  rare  and  radiant  souls 
who  could  bestow  upon  this  delicate 
child  of  genius  her  tenderest  friend- 
ship, perhaps  even  her  love,  yet  keep 
herself  unsullied  and  an  object  of  ado- 
ration as  much  for  her  purity  as  for 
her  beauty.  Because  she  was  Chopin's 
friend,  because  she  came  to  him  in  his 
dying  hours,  because  along  paths  un- 
seen by  those  about  them  her  voice 
threaded  its  way  to  his  very  soul,  no 
72 


FREDERIC   CHOPIN 
From  the  portrait  by  Schick 


(threat  Compostrs 

life  of  him  is  complete  without  mention 
of  her,  and  in  the  mind  of  the  musical 
public  her  name  is  irrevocably  asso- 
ciated with  his.  Each  succeeding  bio- 
grapher of  the  great  composer  has 
sought  to  tell  us  a  little  more  about  her 
— yet  little  is  known  of  her  even  now 
beyond  the  fact  that  she  was  very  beau- 
tiful— and  so  eager  have  we  been  for  a 
glimpse  of  her  face  that  we  have  ac- 
cepted without  reserve  as  an  authentic 
presentment  of  herfeatures  the  famous 
portrait  of  a  Countess  Potocka  who,  I 
find,  died  some  seven  or  eight  years 
before  Delphine  and  Chopin  met. 

But  we  have  portraits  of  Delphine  by 
Chopin  himself,  not  drawn  with  pencil 
or  crayon,  or  painted  with  brush,  but 
her  face  as  his  soul  saw  it  and  trans- 
formed it  into  music.  Listen  to  a  great 
virtuoso  play  his  two  concertos.  Ask 
yourself  which  of  the  six  movements  is 
the  most  beautiful.  Surely  your  choice 
will  fall  on  the  slow  movement  of  the 
second — dedicated  to  the  Countess 

73 


C!)e  5Lot)es  of 

Delphine  Potocka,  and  one  of  the  com- 
poser's most  tender  and  exquisite  pro- 
ductions; or  play  over  the  waltzes— 
the  one  over  which  for  grace  and  poetic 
sentiment  you  will  linger  longest  will 
be  the  sixth,  dedicated  to  the  Countess 
Delphine  Potocka. 

Liszt,  who  knew  Chopin,  tells  us  that 
the  composer  evinced  a  decided  pre- 
ference for  the  Adagio  of  the  second 
concerto  and  liked  to  repeat  it  fre- 
quently. He  speaks  of  the  Adagio,  this 
musical  portrait  of  Delphine,  as  almost 
ideally  perfect ;  now  radiant  with  light, 
now  full  of  tender  pathos ;  a  happy  vale 
of  Tempe,  a  magnificent  landscape 
flooded  with  summer  glow  and  lustre, 
yet  forming  a  background  for  the  re- 
hearsal of  some  dire  scene  of  mortal  an- 
guish, a  contrast  sustained  by  a  fusion 
of  tones,  a  softening  of  gloomy  hues, 
which,  while  saddening  joy,  soothes 
the  bitterness  of  sorrow. 

What  a  lifelike  portrait  Chopin  drew 
in  this  "beautiful,  deep-toned,  love- 
74 


(threat  Composers 

laden  cantilena"!  For  was  it  not  the 
incomparable  Delphine  who  was  de- 
stined to  "soothe  the  bitterness  of  sor- 
row" during  his  final  hours  on  earth? 
But  while  hers  was  a  soul  strung  with 
chords  that  vibrated  to  the  slightest 
breath  of  sorrow,  she  could  be  vivacious 
as  well.  She  was  a  child  of  Poland,  that 
land  of  sorrow,  but  where  sorrow,  for 
very  excess  of  itself,  sometimes  reverts 
to  joy.  And  so  she  had  her  brilliant,  joy- 
ous moments.  Chopin  saw  her  in  such 
moments,  too,  and,  that  the  recollec- 
tion might  not  pass  away,  for  all  time 
fixed  her  picture  in  her  vivacious  moods 
in  the  last  movement,  the  Allegro  vi- 
vace of  the  concerto,  with  what  Niecks, 
one  of  the  leading  modern  biographers 
of  the  composer,  calls  its  feminine  soft- 
ness and  rounded  contours,  its  grace- 
ful, gyrating,  dance-like  motions,  its 
sprightliness  and  frolicsomeness.  In 
the  same  way  in  the  waltz,  there  is  an 
obvious  mingling  of  the  gay  and  the 
sad,  the  tender  and  the  debonair.  Cho- 

75 


%^t  JLotjes  of 

pin  thought  he  was  writing  a  waltz. 
He  really  was  writing  "Delphine  Po- 
tocka."  He,  too,  was  from  Poland,  and 
that  circumstance  of  itself  drew  them 
to  each  other  from  the  time  when  they 
first  met  in  France. 

One  of  Chopin's  favorite  musical  a- 
musements,  when  he  was  a  guest  at 
the  houses  of  his  favorite  friends,  was 
to  play  on  the  piano  musical  portraits 
of  the  company.  At  the  salon  of  the 
Countess  Komar,  Delphine's  mother, 
he  played  one  evening  the  portraits  of 
the  two  daughters  of  the  house.  When 
it  came  to  Delphine's  he  gently  drew  her 
light  shawl  from  her  shoulders,  spread 
it  over  the  keyboard,  and  then  played 
through  it,  his  fingers,  with  every  tone 
they  produced,  coming  in  touch  with 
the  gossamer-like  fabric,  still  warm 
and  hallowed  for  him  from  its  contact 
with  her. 

It  seems  to  have  been  about  1830  that 
Delphine  first  came  into  the  compos- 
er's lif^.  In  that  year  the  Count  and 
76 


(threat  Compo0et0 

Countess  Komar  and  their  three  beau- 
tiful daughters  arrived  in  Nice.  Count 
Komar  >yas  business  manager  for  one 
of  the  Potockas.  The  girls  made  bril- 
liant matches.  Marie  became  the  Prin- 
cess de  Beauvau-Craon;  Delphine  be- 
came the  Countess  Potocka,  and  Na- 
thalie, the  Marchioness  Medici  Spada. 
The  last  named  died  a  victim  to  her 
zeal  as  nurse  during  a  cholera  plague 
in  Rome. 
Chopin  was  a  man  who  attracted  wo- 
men. His  delicate  physique,  — he  died 
of  consumption,— -his  refined,  poetic 
temperament,  and  his  exquisite  art  as 
a  composer  combined  with  his  beau- 
tiful piano  playing,  so  well  suited  to  the 
intimate  circle  of  the  drawing-room,  to 
make  his  personality  a  thoroughly  fas- 
cinating one.  Moreover,  he  was,  be- 
sides an  artist,  a  gentleman,  with  the 
reserve  yet  charm  of  manner  that  char- 
acterizes the  man  of  breeding.  In  men 
women  admire  two  extremes, — splen- 
did physical  strength,  or  the  delicacy 

77 


C|)e  ILoMts  of 

that  suggests  a  poetic  soul.  Chopin  was 
a  creator  of  poetic  music  and  a  gentle 
virtuoso.  His  appearance  harmonized 
with  his  genius.  He  was  one  of  his  own 
nocturnes  in  which  you  can  feel  a  vague 
presentiment  of  untimely  death. 

He  is  described  as  a  model  son,  an  af- 
fectionate brother  and  a  faithful  friend. 
His  eyes  were  brown;  his  hair  was 
chestnut,  luxuriant  and  as  soft  as  silk. 
His  complexion  was  of  transparent  de- 
licacy;  his  voice  subdued  and  musical. 
He  moved  with  grace.  Born  near  War- 
saw, in  1809,  he  was  brought  up  in  his 
father's  school  with  the  sons  of  aristo- 
crats. He  had  the  manners  of  an  aris-- 
tocrat,  and  was  careful  in  his  dress.   / 

But  despite  his  sensitive  nature,  he 
could  resent  undue  familiarity  or  rude- 
ness, yet  in  a  refined  way  all  his  own. 
Once  when  he  was  a  guest  at  dinner 
at  a  rich  man's  house  in  Paris,  he  was 
asked  by  the  host  to  play — a  patent 
violation  of  etiquette  toward  a  distin- 
guished artist.  Chopin  demurred.  The 
78 


(Bxtat  Compo2ier0 

host  continued  to  press  him,  urging 
that  Liszt  and  Thalberg  had  played  in 
his  house  after  dinner. 

"But,"  protested  Chopin,  "I  have 
eaten  so  little !"  and  thus  put  an  end  to 
the  matter. 

Some  twenty  or  thirty  of  the  best  sa- 
lons in  Paris  were  open  to  him.  Among 
them  were  those  of  the  Polish  exiles, 
some  of  whom  he  had  known  since  their 
school-days  at  his  father*s.  He  was  in 
the  truest  sense  of  the  word  a  friend  of 
those  who  entertained  him — in  fact, 
one  of  them.  For  a  list  of  those  among 
whom  he  moved  socially  read  the  de- 
dications on  his  music.  They  include 
wealthy  women,  like  Mme.  Nathaniel 
de  Rothschild,  but  also  a  long  line  of 
princesses  and  countesses.  In  the  salon 
of  the  Potocka  he  was  intimately  at 
home,  and  it  was  especially  there  he 
drew  his  musical  portraits  at  the  piano. 
Delphine,  his  brilliant  countrywoman, 
vibrated  with  music  herself.  She  pos- 
sessed "une  belle  voixdesoprano,"and 

79 


CI)e  Hotjes  of 

sang  **d'apr^s  la  m6thode  des  maJtres 
dltalie." 

In  her  salon  were  heard  such  singers 
as  Rubini,  Lablache,Tamburini,  Mali- 
bran,  Grisi  and  Persiani.  Yet  it  was  her 
voice  Chopin  wished  to  hear  when  he 
lay  dying!  Truly  hers  must  have  been 
a  marvellous  gift  of  song!  At  her  salon 
it  was  his  delight  to  accompany  her 
with  his  highly  poetical  playing.  From 
what  is  known  of  his  delicate  art  as  a 
pianist  it  is  possible  to  imagine  how 
exquisitely  his  accompaniments  must 
have  both  sustained  and  mingled  with 
that  '*belle  voix  de  soprano."  He  had  a 
knack  of  improvising  a  melody  to  any 
poem  that  happened  to  take  his  fancy, 
and  thus  he  and  Delphine  would  treat 
to  an  improvised  song  the  61ite  of  the 
musical,  artistic,  literary  and  social 
world  that  gathered  in  her  salon.  It  is 
unfortunate  that  these  improvisations 
werelightlyforgottenbythecomposer, 
for  he  has  left  us  few  songs.  Delphine 
''tookas  much  trouble  in  giving  choice 
80 


COUNTESS  POTOCKA 
From  the  famous  pastel  in  the  Royal  Berlin  Gallery.     Artist  unknown 


<15reat  Compo0er0 

musical  entertainments  as  other  peo- 
ple did  in  giving  choice  dinners."  Her 
salon  must  have  been  a  resort  after  the 
composer's  own  heart. 

Liszt,  who  knew  Delphine  well  dur- 
ing Chopin's  lifetime,  and  from  whose 
letters,  as  yet  untranslated  into  Eng- 
lish, I  have  been  able  to  unearth  a  few 
references  to  her  (the  last  in  May,i86i, 
nearly  twelve  years  after  Chopin  died, 
and  the  last  definite  reference  to  her 
which  I  have  been  able  to  discover), 
says  that  her  indescribable  and  spirit- 
ed grace  made  her  one  of  the  most  ad- 
mired sovereigns  of  the  society  of  Paris. 
He  speaks  of  her  "ethereal  beauty" 
and  her  "enchanting  voice"  which  en- 
chained Chopin.  Delphine  was,  in  fact, 
"famous  for  her  rare  beauty  and  fas- 
cinating singing." 

No  biography  of  Chopin  contains  so 
much  as  the  scrap  of  a  letter  either 
from  him  to  her,  or  from  her  to  him. 
That  he  should  not  have  written  is 
hardly  to  be  wondered  at,  considering 

8i 


Clje  JLotjes  of 

that  letter  writing  was  most  repug- 
nant to  him.  He  would  take  along  walk 
in  order  to  accept  or  decline  an  invi- 
tation in  person,  rather  than  indite  a 
brief  note.  Moreover,  in  addition  to  this 
trait,  he  was  so  often  in  the  salon  of 
the  Countess  Potocka  that  much  cor- 
respondence with  her  was  unneces- 
sary. I  have,  however,  discovered  two 
letters  from  her  to  the  composer.  One, 
written  in  French,  asks  him  to  occupy 
a  seat  in  her  box  at  a  Berlioz  concert. 
The  other  is  in  Polish  and  is  quite  long. 
It  is  undated,  and  there  is  nothing  to 
show  from  where  it  was  written.  Evi- 
dently, however,  she  had  heard  that 
he  was  ailing,  for  she  begs  him  to  send 
her  a  few  words,  poste  restante,  to  Aix- 
la-Chapelle,  letting  her  know  how  he 
is.  From  this  request  it  seems  that  she 
was  away  from  Paris  (possibly  in  or 
near  Poland),  but  expected  to  start  for 
the  French  capital  soon  and  wished  to 
be  apprised  of  his  condition  at  the  ear- 
liest moment.  The  anxious  tone  of  the 
82 


(threat  Composers 

letter  leads  me  to  believe  that  it  was 
written  during  the  last  year  of  the  com- 
poser's life,  when  the  insidious  nature 
of  the  disease  of  which  he  was  a  vic- 
tim had  become  apparent  to  himself 
and  his  friends.  ...  "I  cannot,"  she 
writes,  "wait  so  long  without  news 
of  your  health  and  your  plans  for  the 
future.  Do  not  attempt  to  write  to 
me  yourself,  but  ask  Mme.  Etienne,  or 
that  excellent  grandma,  who  dreams 
of  chops,  to  let  me  know  about  your 
strength,  your  chest,  your  breathing." 
Delphine  also  was  well  aware  of  the 
unsatisfactory  state  of  his  finances, 
for  she  writes  that  she  would  like  to 
know  something  about  "that  Jew;  if 
he  called  and  was  able  to  be  of  service 
to  you."  What  follows  is  in  a  vein  of 
sadness,  showing  that  her  own  Ufe  was 
not  without  its  sorrows.  "Here  every- 
thing is  sad  and  lonely,  but  my  life  goes 
on  in  much  the  usual  way ;  if  only  it  will 
continue  without  further  bitter  sor- 
rows and  trials,  I  shall  be  able  to  sup- 

83 


Clje  3lot)e0  of 

port  it.  For  me  the  world  has  no  more 
happiness,  no  more  joy.  All  those  to 
whom  I  have  wished  well  ever  have  re- 
warded me  with  ingratitude  or  caused 
me  other  tribulations."  (The  italics  are 
hers.)  "After  all,  this  existence  is  no- 
thing but  a  great  discord."  Then,  with 
a  "que  Dieu  vous  garde,"  she  bids  him 
au  revoir  till  the  beginning  of  October 
at  the  latest. 

Note  that  it  was  in  October,  1849,  that 
Chopin  took  to  his  deathbed;  that  in 
another  passage  of  the  letter  she  ad- 
vised him  to  think  of  Nice  for  the  win- 
ter ;  and  that  it  was  from  Nice  she  was 
summoned  to  his  bedside.  It  would 
seem  as  if  she  had  received  alarming 
advices  regarding  his  health ;  had  has- 
tened to  Paris  and  then  to  the  Riviera  to 
make  arrangements  for  him  to  pass  the 
winter  there ;  and  then,  learning  that 
the  worst  was  feared,  had  hurried  back 
to  solace  his  last  hours. 

Then  came  what  is  perhaps  the  most 
touching  scene  that  has  been  handed 
84 


(threat  Composers 

down  to  us  from  the  lives  of  the  great 
composers.  When  Delphine  entered 
what  was  soon  to  be  the  death  cham- 
ber, Chopin's  sister  Louise  and  a  few 
of  his  most  intimate  friends  were  ga- 
thered there.  She  took  her  place  by 
Louise.  When  the  dying  man  opened 
his  eyes  and  saw  her  standing  at  the 
foot  of  his  bed,  tall,  slight,  draped  in 
white,  resembling  a  beautiful  angel, 
and  mingling  her  tears  with  those  of 
his  sister,  his  lips  moved,  and  those 
nearest  him,  bending  over  to  catch  his 
words,  heard  him  ask  that  she  would 
sing. 

Mastering  her  emotion  by  a  strong 
effort  of  the  will,  she  sang  in  a  voice 
of  bell-like  purity  the  canticle  to  the 
Virgin  attributed  to  Stradella,— sang 
it  so  devoutly,  so  ethereally,  that  the 
dying  man,  "artist  and  lover  of  the 
beautiful  to  the  very  last,"  whispered 
in  ecstasy,  "How  exquisite!  Again, 
again!" 

Once  more  she  sang— this  time  a 

85 


Cl)e  JLotjes  of 

psalm  by  Marcello.  It  was  the  haunted 
hour  of  twilight.  The  dying  day  draped 
the  scene  in  its  mysterious  shadows. 
Those  at  the  bedside  had  sunk  noise- 
lessly on  their  knees.  Over  the  mourn- 
ful accompaniment  of  sobs  floated  the 
voice  of  Delphine  like  a  melody  from 
heaven. 
Chopin  died  on  October  17,  i849,(just 
as  the  bells  of  Paris  were  tolling  the 
hour  of  three  in  the  morning.  He  was 
known  to  love  flowers,  and  in  death  he 
literally  was  covered  with  them.  The 
funeral  was  held  from  the  Madeleine, 
where  Mozart's  "  Requiem  "  was  sung, 
the  solos  being  taken  by  Pauline  Viar- 
dot-Garcia,  Castellan  and  Lablache. 
Meyerbeer  is  said  to  have  conducted, 
but  this  has  been  contradicted.  H  e  was, 
however,  one  of  the  pallbearers  on  the 
long  way  from  the  church  to  Pere  la 
Chaise.  When  the  remains  were  low- 
ered into  the  grave,  some  Polish  earth, 
which  Chopin  had  brought  with  him 
from  Wola  nineteen  years  before  and 
86 


o     = 


(Bxtat  Composers 

piously  guarded,  was  scattered  over 
the  coffin.  There  is  nothing  to  show 
what  part,  save  that  of  a  mourner,  Del- 
phine  Potocka  took  in  his  funeral.  But 
though  it  was  the  famous  Viardot-Gar- 
cia  whose  voice  rang  out  in  the  Made- 
leine, it  was  hers  that  had  sung  him  to 
his  eternal  rest. 

How  long  did  Delphine  survive  Cho- 
pin? In  1853  Liszt  met  her  at  Baden, 
postponing  his  intended  departure  for 
Carlsruhe  a  day  in  order  to  dine  with 
her.  In  May,  1861,  he  met  her  at  dinner 
at  the  Rothschilds'.  When  Chopin's 
pupil,  Mikuli,  was  preparing  his  edi- 
tion of  the  composer's  works,  Delphine 
furnished  him  copies  of  several  com- 
positions bearing  expression  marks 
and  other  directions  in  the  hand  of  Cho- 
pin himself.  Mikuli  dated  his  edition 
1879.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  Countess 
still  were  living  at  or  about  that  time. 

Besides  the  aid  she  thus  gave  in  the 
preparation  of  the  Mikuli  edition  of 
Chopin's  works,  there  is  other  evidence 

87 


C|)e  3lotje0  of 

that  she  treasured  the  composer's  me- 
mory. In  1857,  when  he  had  been  dead 
eight  years,  there  was  pubHshed  a  bio- 
graphical dictionary  of  PoHsh  and  Sla- 
vonic musicians,  a  book  now  very  rare. 
Although  the  Potocka  was  only  an 
amateur,  her  name  was  included  in  the 
publication.  Evidently  the  biographies 
of  living  people  were  furnished  by 
themselves.  Chopin's  fame  at  that  time 
did  not  approximate  what  it  is  now. 
Yet  in  the  second  sentence  of  her  bio- 
graphy Delphine  records  that  she  was 
"the  intimate  friend  of  the  illustrious 
Chopin." 

Forgetting  that  the  line  of  the  Po- 
tockis  is  along  one,  the  public  for  years 
has  associated  with  Chopin  the  famous 
pastel  portrait  of  Countess  Potocka  in 
the  Royal  Berlin  Gallery.  The  Coun- 
tess Potocka  of  that  portrait  had  a  ca- 
reer that  reads  like  a  romance,  but  she 
was  Sophie,  not  Delphine  Potocka. 
My  discovery  of  a  miniature  of  Coun- 
tess Sophie  Potocka  in  Philadelphia, 
88 


(threat  Composers 

painted  some  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
later  than  the  Berlin  pastel,  and  of  nu- 
merous references  to  her  in  the  diary 
of  an  American  traveller  who  was  en- 
tertained by  her  in  Poland  early  in  the 
last  century,  were  among  the  interest^ 
ing  results  of  my  search  for  informa- 
tion regarding  Delphine,  but  they  have 
no  place  here.  Probably  the  public, 
which  clings  to  romance,  still  will  cling 
to  the  pastel  portrait  of  Countess  Po- 
tocka  as  that  of  the  woman  who  sang 
to  the  dying  Chopin— and  so  the  por- 
trait is  reproduced  here. 

Barrias,  the  French  historical  painter,? 
who  was  in  Paris  when  Chopin  lived 
there,  painted  "The  Death  of  Chopin.": 
It  shows  Delphine  singing  to  the  dying' 
man.  As  Barrias  had  his  reputation  as 
a  historical  painter  to  sustain  and  as 
the  likenesses  of  others  on  the  canvas 
are  correct,  it  is  not  improbable  that 
he  painted  Delphine  as  he  saw  or  re- 
membered her.  If  so,  this  is  the  only 
known  portrait  of  Chopin's  faithful 

89 


Wbt  3lotjes  of 

friend,  theCountess  Delphine  Potocka. 
Of  course  no  one  who  undertakes  to 
write  about  Chopin  (or  only  to  read 
about  him  for  that  matter)  can  escape 
the  episode  with  Mme.  Dudevant,— 
George  Sand,— who  used  man  after 
manasliving"copy,"andwhenshehad 
finished  with  him  cast  him  aside  for 
some  newexperience.  But  the  story  has 
been  admirably  told  by  Huneker  and 
others  and  its  disagreeable  details  need 
not  be  repeated  here.  It  may  have  been 
love,  even  passion,  while  it  lasted,  but 
itended  in  harsh  discord ;  whereas  Del- 
phine, sweet  and  pure  and  tender,  ever 
was  like  a  strain  of  Chopin's  own  ex- 
quisite music  vibrating  in  a  sympathe- 
tic heart 


90 


Eo&ett  ano  Clata 


laobert  anD  Clara 

OBERT  and  Clara  Schu- 
mann are  names  as  closely 
linked  in  music  as  those  of 
Robert  and  Elizabeth  Bar- 
rett Browning  in  literature.  Robert 
Schumann  was  a  great  composer,  Clara 
Schumann  a  great  pianist.  In  her  dual 
rdle  of  wife  and  virtuosa  she  was  the 
first  to  secure  proper  recognition  for 
her  husband's  genius.  Surviving  him 
many  years,  she  continued  the  foremost 
interpreter  of  his  works,  winning  new 
laurels  not  only  for  herself  but  also  for 
him.  He  was  in  his  grave  — yet  she  had 
but  to  press  the  keyboard  and  he  lived 
in  her.  Despite  the  fact  that  tastes  un- 
derwentachangeandWagnerbecame 
the  musical  giant  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, Clara,  faithful  to  the  ideal  of  her 
youth  and  her  young  womanhood,  saw 
to  it  that  the  fame  of  him  whose  name 

93 


C|)e  3LoMts  of 

she  bore  remained  undimmed.  Hers 
was,  indeed,  a  consecrated  widow- 
hood. 
Robert  was  eighteen  years  old,  Clara 
onlynine,whentheyfirstmet;butwhile 
he  had  not  yet  definitely  decided  on  a 
profession,  she,  in  the  very  year  of  their 
meeting,  made  her  d6but  as  a  pianist, 
and  thus  began  a  career  which  lasted 
until  1896,  a  period  of  nearly  seventy 
years !  When  they  first  met,  Schumann 
was  studying  law  at  the  Leipsic  Uni- 
versity. Born  in  Zwickau,  Saxony,  in 
1810,  he  showed  both  as  a  boy  and  as  a 
youth  not  only  strong  musical  procli- 
vities, but  also  decided  literary  predi- 
lections. In  the  latter  his  father,  a  book- 
seller and  publisher,  who  loved  his 
trade,  saw  a  reflection  of  his  own  tastes, 
and  they  were  encouraged  rather  more 
sedulously  than  the  boy's  musical  bent. 
It  was  in  obedience  to  his  father's 
wishes  that  he  matriculated  at  Leip- 
sic, although  he  composed  and  played 
the  piano,  and  his  desire  to  make  mu- 
94 


ROBERT   SCHUMANN 
From  a  portrait  by  E.  Bendemann 


^  ^\.  O   -   '  ■:.  j 


(threat  Composers 

sic  his  profession  was  beginning  to  get 
the  upper  hand.  His  meeting  with  the 
nine-year-old  girl  decided  him — so 
early  in  her  life  did  she  begin  to  influ- 
ence his  career! 

Schumann  had  been  invited  by  his 
friends,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Carus,  to  an  even- 
ing of  music,  and  especially  to  hear  the 
piano  playing  of  a  wonder-child — a 
"musical  fairy,"  his  hostess  called  her. 
In  the  course  of  the  evening  he  accom- 
panied Frau  Carus  in  some  Schubert 
songs,  when,  chancing  to  look  up,  he 
saw  a  child  dressed  in  white,  her  pretty 
face  framed  in  dark  hair,  her  expressive 
eyes  raised  toward  the  singer  in  rapt 
admiration.  The  song  over,  and  the  ap- 
plause having  died  away,  he  stepped 
up  to  the  child,  laid  his  hand  kindly  on 
her  head,  and  asked,  "Are  you  musical, 
too,  little  one?" 

Acurious  smileplayed  around  her  lips. 
She  was  about  to  answer,  when  a  man 
came  to  her  and  led  her  to  the  piano, 
and  the  first  thing  Schumann  knew  the 

95 


Clje  ILotje0  of 

shapely  little  hands  struck  into  Beet- 
hoven's F-minor  Sonata  and  played  it 
through  with  a  firm,  sure  touch  and 
fine  musical  feeling.  No  wonder  she  had 
smiled  at  his  question. 

"Was  I  right  in  calling  her  a*  musical 
fairy'?"  asked  Frau  Carus  of  Schu- 
mann. 

"Her  face  is  like  that  of  a  guardian 
angel  in  a  picture  that  hangs  in  my 
mother's  room  at  home,"  was  his  re- 
ply. Little  he  knew  then  that  this  child 
was  destined  to  become  his  own  good 
fairy  and  "guardian  angel."  Had  he 
foreseen  what  she  was  to  be  to  him,  he 
could  not  more  aptly  have  described 
her.  The  most  important  immediate 
result  of  the  meeting  was  that  he  be- 
came a  pupil  of  her  father,  Friedrich 
Wieck,  whose  remarkable  skill  as  a 
teacher  had  carried  his  daughter  so 
far  at  such  an  early  age.  The  lessons 
stopped  when  Schumann  went  to  Hei- 
delberg to  continue  his  studies,  but  he 
and  Wieck,  who  was  convinced  of  the 
96 


(threat  Composers 

young  man's  musical  genius,  corre- 
sponded in  a  most  friendly  manner. 

Clara,  who  was  born  in  Leipsic  in  1819, 
became  her  father's  pupil  in  her  fifth 
year.  It  is  she  who  chiefly  reflected 
glory  upon  himasamaster,  but,  among 
his  other  pupils,  Hans  von  Billow  be- 
came famous,  and  Clara's  half-sister 
Marie  also  was  a  noted  pianist.  Wieck's 
system  was  not  a  hard-and-fast  one, 
but  varied  according  to  the  individu- 
ality of  each  pupil.  He  was  to  his  day 
what  Leschetizky,  the  teacher  of  Pa- 
derewski,  is  now.  Very  soon  after  her 
meeting  with  Schumann,  Clara  made 
her  public  d6but,  and  with  great  suc- 
cess. Among  those  who  heard  and 
praised  herhighlyduringthis  first  year 
of  her  public  career  was  Paganini. 

In  1830,  two  years  after  the  first  meet- 
ingof  Robert  and  Clara,  Schumann,  his 
father  having  died,  wrote  to  his  mother 
and  his  guardian  and  begged  them  to 
allow  him  to  choose  a  musical  career, 
referring  them  to  Wieck  for  an  opinion 

97 


Cl)e  3lolje0  of 

as  to  his  musical  abilities.  The  mother 
wrote  to  Wieck  a  letter  which  is  highly 
creditable  to  her  heart  and  judgment, 
and  Wieck^s  replyis  equally  creditable 
to  him  as  a  friend  and  teacher.  Evi- 
dently his  powers  of  penetration  led 
him  to  entertain  the  highest  hopes  for 
Schumann.  Among  other  things  he 
writes  that,  with  due  diligence,  Robert 
should  in  a  few  years  become  one  of 
the  greatest  pianists  of  the  day.  Why 
Wieck's  hopes  in  this  particular  were 
not  fulfilled,  and  why,  for  this  reason, 
Clara*s  gifts  as  a  pianist  were  doubly 
useful  to  Schumann,  we  shall  see 
shortly. 

Schumann  entered  with  enthusiasm 
upon  the  career  of  his  choice.  He  left 
Heidelberg  and  took  lodgings  with  the 
Wiecks  in  Leipsic.  Clara,  then  a  mere 
girl,  though  already  winning  fame  as 
a  concert  pianist,  certainly  was  too 
young  for  him  to  have  fallen  seriously 
inlovewith,orforhertohaveresponded 
to  any  such  feeling.  Even  at  that  early 
98 


ROBERT  AND  CLARA  SCHUMANN   IN   1847 
From  a  lithograph  in  possession  of  the  Society  of  Friends  of  Music,  Vienna 


(threat  Compo0er0 

age,  however,  she  exercised  a  strange 
power  of  attraction  over  him.  His  for- 
mer literary  tastes  had  given  him  a 
great  fund  of  stories  and  anecdotes, 
and  he  dehghted  in  the  evenings  to  ga- 
ther about  him  the  children  of  the  fa- 
mily, Clara  among  them,  and  entertain 
them  with  tales  from  the  Arabian 
Nights  and  ghost  and  fairy  stories. 
Among  his  compositions  at  this  time 
are  a  set  of  impromptus  on  a  theme  by 
Clara,  and  it  is  significant  of  his  regard 
for  her  that  later  he  worked  them  over, 
as  if  he  did  not  consider  them  in  their 
original  shape  good  enough  for  her. 
Then  we  have  from  this  period  a  letter 
which  he  wrote  to  the  twelve-year-old 
girl  while  she  was  concertizing  in 
Frankfort,  and  in  which  the  expres- 
sions certainly  transcend  those  of  a 
youth  for  a  child,  or  of  an  elder  brother 
for  a  sister,  if  one  cared  to  picture  their 
relations  as  such.  Indeed,  he  writes  to 
her  that  he  often  thinks  of  her  "not  as 
a  brother  does  of  a  sister,  nor  as  one 

99 


Wl^t  3lot)e0  of 

friend  of  another,  but  as  a  pilgrim  of  a 
distant  altar-picture."  He  asks  her  if 
she  has  composed  much,  adding,  "In 
my  dreams  I  sometimes  hear  music — 
so  you  must  be  composing."  He  con- 
fides in  her  about  his  own  work,  tells 
her  that  his  theoretical  studies  (with 
Heinrich  Dorn)  have  progressed  as  far 
as  the  three-part  fugue ;  and  that  he  has 
a  sonata  in  B  minor  and  a  set  of  "Pa- 
pillons"  ready;  then  jokingly  asks  her 
how  the  Frankfort  apples  taste  and  in- 
quires after  the  health  of  the  F  above 
the  staff  in  the  "jumpy  Chopin  varia- 
tion," and  informs  her  that  his  paper  is 
givingout. "  Everythinggivesout,  save 
the  friendship  in  which  I  am  Fraulein 
C.  W.*s  warmest  admirer." 
For  a  letter  from  a  man  of  twenty-one 
to  a  girl  of  twelve,  the  above  is  remark- 
able. IfClara  had  not  afterward  become 
Robert's  wife,  it  would  have  interest 
merely  as  a  curiosity.  As  matters  even- 
tuated, it  is  a  charming  prelude  to  the 
love-symphonyof  two  lives.  Moreover, 

100 


<15reat  Cofttp€E0er0 

there  seems  to  have  been  ample  ground 
for  Schumann's  admiration.  Dorn  has 
left  a  description  of  Clara  as  she  was 
at  this  time,  which  shows  her  to  have 
been  unusually  attractive.  He  speaks 
of  her  as  a  fascinating  girl  of  thirteen, 
"graceful  in  figure,  of  blooming  com- 
plexion, with  delicate  white  hands,  a 
profusion  of  black  hair,  and  wise,  glow- 
ingeyes.  Everything  about  her  was  ap- 
petizing, and  I  never  have  blamed  my 
pupil,  young  Robert  Schumann,  that 
only  three  years  later  he  should  have 
been  completely  carried  away  by  this 
lovely  creature,  his  former  fellow-pupil 
and  future  wife."  Her  purity  and  her 
genius,  added  to  her  beauty,  may  well 
have  combined  to  make  Robert,  mu- 
sical dreamer  and  enthusiast  on  the 
threshold  of  his  career,  think  of  her, 
when  absent,  "as  a  pilgrim  of  a  distant 
altar-picture." 
She  was  clever,  too,  and  through  her 
concert  tours  was  seeing  much  of  the 
world  for  those  days.  In  Weimar  she 

lOI 


played  for  Goethe,  the  great  poet  him- 
self getting  a  cushion  for  her  and  pla- 
cing it  on  the  piano  stool  in  order  that 
she  might  sit  high  enough;  and  not  only 
praising  her  playing,  but  also  present- 
ing her  with  his  likeness  in  a  medallion. 
The  poet  Grillparzer,  after  hearing  her 
play  in  Vienna  Beethoven's  F-minor 
Sonata,  wrote  a  delightful  poem, "  Clara 
Wieck  and  Beethoven's  F-minor  So- 
nata." It  tells  how  a  magician,  weary 
of  life,  locked  all  his  charms  inashrine, 
threw  the  key  into  the  sea,  and  died.  In 
vain  men  tried  to  force  open  the  shrine. 
At  last  a  girl,  wandering  by  the  strand 
and  watching  their  vain  efforts,  simply 
dipped  her  white  fingers  into  the  sea 
and  drew  forth  the  key,  with  which  she 
opened  the  shrine  and  released  the 
charms.  And  now  the  freed  spirits  rise 
and  fall  at  the  bidding  of  their  lovely, 
innocent  mistress,  who  guides  them 
with  her  white  fingers  as  she  plays. 
The  imagery  of  this  tribute  to  tiara's 
playing  is  readily  understood.  In  Paris 

102 


(threat  Composers 

she  heard  Chopin  and  Mendelssohn. 
All  these  experiences  tended  to  her 
early  development,  and  there  is  little 
wonderifSchumannsawherolderthan 
she  really  was. 

In  1834  Schumann's  early  literary 
tastes  asserted  themselves,  but  now  in 
connection  with  music.  He  founded  the 
"Neue  Zeitschrift  fiir  Musik,"  which 
under  his  editorship  soon  became  one 
of  the  foremost  musical  periodicals  of 
the  day.  Among  his  own  writings  for  it 
is  the  enthusiastic  essay  on  one  of  Cho- 
pin's early  works,  in  which  Schumann, 
as  he  did  later  in  the  case  of  Brahms, 
discovered  the  unmistakable  marks  of 
genius.  The  name  of  Chopin  brings  me 
back  to  Wieck's  prophecy  regarding 
Schumann  as  a  pianist.  The  latter  in 
his  enthusiasm  devised  an  apparatus 
for  finger  gymnastics  which  he  prac- 
tised so  assiduously  that  he  strained 
one  of  his  fingers  and  permanently  im- 
paired his  technique,  making  a  pian- 
istic  career  an  impossibility.  Through 

103 


Cl)e  JLotjes  of 

this  accident  he  was  unable  to  intro- 
duce his  own  piano  works  to  the  pub- 
lic, so  that  the  importance  of  the  ser- 
vice rendered  him  by  Clara,  in  taking 
his  compositions  into  her  repertoire, 
both  before  and  after  their  marriage, 
was  doubled. 
One  evening  at  Wieck's,  Schumann 
was  anxious  to  hear  some  new  Chopin 
workswhichhehadjustreceived.Real- 
izingthat  his  lame  finger  rendered  him 
incapable  of  playing,  he  called  out  de- 
spairingly: 

"Who  will  lend  me  fingers?" 
"I  will," said  Clara,  and  sat  down  and 
played  the  pieces  for  him.  She  "lenthim 
her  fingers;"  and  that  is  precisely  what 
she  did  for  him  through  life  in  making 
his  piano  and  chamber  music  composi- 
tions known.  Familiarity  with  Schu- 
mann's music  enables  us  of  to-day  to 
appreciate  its  beauty.  But  for  its  day  it 
was,  like  Brahms' music  later,  of  a  kind 
that  makes  its  way  slowly.  Left  to  the 
general  musical  public,  it  probably 
104 


(threat  Composers 

would  have  been  years  in  sinking  into 
their  hearts.  Such  music  requires  to  be 
publicly  performed  by  a  sympathetic 
interpreter  before  receiving  its  meed  of 
merit.  Schumann  had  hoped  to  be  his 
own  interpreter.  He  saw  that  hope  van- 
ish, but  a  lovely  being  came  to  his  aid. 
She  saw  his  works  come  into  life ;  their 
creation  was  part  of  her  own  existence ; 
she  fathomed  his  genius  to  its  utmost 
depths;  her  whole  being  vibrated  in 
sympathy  with  his,  and  when  she  sat 
down  at  the  piano  and  pressed  the  keys, 
it  was  as  though  he  himself  were  the 
performer.  She  was  his  fingers — fin- 
gers at  once  deft  and  delicate.  She 
played  with  adouble  love — love  for  him 
and  love  for  his  music.  And  why  should 
she  not  love  it?  She  was  as  inuch  the 
mother  of  his  music  as  of  his  children. 
I  have  already  indicated  that  Clara 
probably  developed  early.  At  all  events, 
there  are  letters  from  Schumann  to  her, 
at  fourteen,  which  leave  no  doubt  that 
he  was  in  love  with  her  then,  or  that  she 

105 


C|)e  ?lote0  of 

could  have  failed  to  perceive  this.  In 
one  of  these  letters  he  proposes  this 
highly  poetic,  not  to  say  psychological, 
method  of  communicating  with  her. 
"Promptly  at  eleven  o^clock  to-mor- 
row morning,"  he  writes,  "I  will  play 
the  Adagio  from  the  Chopin  variations 
and  will  think  strongly— in  fact  only— 
of  you.  Now  I  beg  of  you  that  you  will 
do  the  same,  so  that  we  may  meet  and 

see  each  other  in  spirit Should  you 

not  do  this,  and  there  break  to-morrow 
at  that  hour  a  chord,  you  will  know  that 
it  is  I." 

However  far  the  affair  may  or  may  not 
have  progressed  at  this  time,  there  was 
a  curious  interruption  during  the  fol- 
lowing year.  Robert  appears  to  have 
temporarily  lost  his  heart  to  a  certain 
Ernestine  von  Fricken,  a  young  lady 
of  sixteen,  who  was  one  of  Wieck*s  pu- 
pils. Clara  consoled  herself  by  permit- 
ting a  musician  named  Banck  to  pay 
her  attention.  For  reasons  which  never 
have  been  clearly  explained,  Schu- 
io6 


CLARA  SCHUMANN  AT  THE   PIANO 


d^reat  Composers 

tnann  suddenly  broke  with  Ernestine 
and  turned  with  renewed  ardor  to 
Clara,  while  Clara  at  once  withdrew 
her  affections  from  Banck  and  retrans- 
ferred  them  to  Schumann.  We  find  him 
writing  to  her  again  in  1835: 

"Through  all  the  Autumn  festivals 
there  looks  out  an  angeFs  head  that 
closely  resembles  a  certain  Clara  who 
is  very  well  known  to  me."  By  the  fol- 
lowing year,  Clara  then  being  seven- 
teen, things  evidently  had  gone  so  far 
that,  between  themselves,  they  were 
engaged.  "Fate  has  destined  us  for 
each  other,"  he  writes  to  her. "  I  myself 
knew  that  long  ago,  but  I  had  not  the 
courage  to  tell  you  sooner,  nor  the 
hope  to  be  understood  by  you." 

Wieck  evidently  had  remained  in  ig- 
norance of  the  young  people's  attach- 
ment, for,  when  on  Clara's  birthday  the 
following  year  (1837)  Schumann  made 
formal  application  in  writing  for  her 
hand,  her  father  gave  an  evasive  an- 
swer, and  on  the  suit  being  pressed, 

107 


Cl)e  lLtj\Jts  of 

he,  who  had  been  almost  Hke  a  second 
father  to  Robert,  became  his  bitter 
enemy.  Clara,  however,  remained  faith- 
ful to  her  lover  through  the  three  years 
of  unhappiness  which  her  father's  sud- 
den hatred  of  Robert  caused  them.  In 
1839  she  was  in  Paris,  and  from  there 
she  wrote  to  her  father: 

"My  love  for  Schumann  is,  it  is  true> 
a  passionate  love ;  I  do  not,  however, 
love  him  solely  out  of  passion  and  senti- 
mental enthusiasm,  but,  furthermore, 
because  I  think  him  one  of  the  best  of 
men,  because  I  believe  no  other  man 
could  love  me  as  purely  and  nobly  as 
he  or  so  understanding^ ;  and  I  believe, 
also,  on  my  part  that  I  can  make  him 
wholly  happy  through  allowing  him  to 
possess  me,  and  that  I  understand  him 
as  no  other  woman  could." 

This  love  obviously  was  one  not 
lightly  bestowed,  but  Wieck  remained 
obdurate  and  refused  his  consent. Then 
Schumann  took  the  only  step  that  un- 
der the  circumstances  was  possible- 
108 


(threat  Composers 

Wieck*s  refusal  of  his  consent  being  a 
legal  bar  to  the  marriage,  Robert  in- 
voked the  law  to  set  his  future  father- 
in-law's  objections  aside.  The  case 
was  tried,  decided  in  Schumann's  fa- 
vor, and  on  September  12,  1840,  Ro- 
bert Schumann  and  Clara  Wieck  were 
married  in  the  village  of  Schonefeld, 
near  Leipsic.  That  year  Schumann 
composed  no  less  than  one  hundred 
and  thirty-eight  songs,  among  them 
some  of  his  most  beautiful.  They  were 
his  wedding  gift  to  Clara. 
After  their  marriage  his  inspiration 
blossomed  under  her  very  eyes.  She 
was  the  companion  of  his  innermost 
thoughts  and  purposes.  Meanwhile  his 
musical  genius  and  critical  acumen 
ever  were  at  her  command  in  her  work 
as  a  pianist.  Happily,  too,  a  reconcilia- 
tion was  effected  with  Wieck,  and  we 
find  Clara  writing  to  him  about  the  first 
performance  of  Schumann's  piano 
quintet  (now  ranked  as  one  of  the  finest 
compositions  of  its  class),  on  which  oc- 

109 


Clje  ILo'Dts  of 

casion  she,  of  course,  played  the  piano 
part. 

Four  years  after  their  marriage  the 
Schumanns  removed  to  Dresden,  re- 
mainingthereuntil  1850,  when  theyset- 
tled  in  Diisseldorf,  where  Robert  had 
been  appointed  musical  director. There 
was  but  one  shadow  over  their  lives.  At 
times  a  deep  melancholy  came  over 
him,  and  in  this  Clara  discerned  with 
dread  possible  symptoms  of  coming 
mental  disorder.  Her  fears  were  only 
too  well  founded.  Early  in  February, 
1854,  he  arose  during  the  night  and 
demanded  light,  saying  that  Schubert 
had  appeared  to  him  and  given  him  a 
melody  which  he  must  write  out  forth- 
with. On  the  27th  of  the  same  month, 
he  quietly  left  his  house,  went  to  the 
bridge  across  the  Rhine  and  threwhim- 
self  into  the  river.  Boatmen  prevented 
his  intended  suicide.  When  he  was 
brought  home  and  had  changed  his  wet 
clothes  for  dry  ones,  he  sat  down  to 
work  on  a  variation  as  if  nothing  had 
no 


THE  SCHUMANN   MONUMENT  IN  THE  BONN  CEMETERY 


d^reat  Composers 

happened.  Within  less  than  a  week  he 
was  removed  at  his  own  request  to  a 
sanatorium  at  Endenich,  where  he  died 
July  29, 1856. 

Clara  survived  him  forty  years,  wear- 
ing a  crown  of  laurels  and  thorns— the 
laurels  of  a  famous  pianist,  the  thorns 
of  her  widowhood.  It  was  a  widowhood 
consecrated,  as  much  as  her  wifehood 
had  been,  to  herhusband*s  genius.  She 
died  at  Frankfort,  May  19, 1896,  and  is 
buried  beside  her  husband  in  Bonn. 


Ill 


fran?  timt 
ano  ^10  Caroline 


Jf ran?  m^}t 

anti  ^is  Carolpne 


N  the  famous  Wagner- Liszt 
correspondence,  Liszt  writes 
from  Weimar,  under  date 
of  April  8,  1853,  "Daily  the 
Princess  greets  me  with  the  lines 
'Nicht  Gut,  noch  Geld,  noch  Gott- 
liche  Pracht/"  The  lines  are  from  "  Got- 
terdammerung,"  the  whole  passage 
being— 

"Nor  goods,  nor  gold,  nor  godlike  splendor; 
Nor  house,  nor  home,  nor  lordly  state; 
Nor  hollow  contracts  of  a  treach'rous  race, 
Its  cruel  cant,  its  custom  and  decree. 
Blessed,  in  joy  and  sorrow, 
Let  love  alone  be." 

The  lady  who  according  to  Liszt  daily 
greeted  him  with  these  significant 
lines  was  the  Princess  Carolyne  Sayn- 
Wittgenstein.  Since  1848  she  and  her 
young  daughter  Marie  had  been  living 
with  Liszt  at  the  Altenburg  in  Weimar. 


"5 


C|)e  Hotjesf  of 

She  remained  there  until  i860,  twelve 
years,whenshewentto  Rome,  whither, 
in  due  time,  Liszt  followed  her,  to  make 
the  Eternal  City  one  of  his  homes  for 
the  rest  of  his  life.  His  last  letter  to  her 
is  dated  July6, 1886,  the  year  and  month 
of  his  death,  so  that  for  a  period  of  nearly 
forty  years  he  enjoyed  the  personal  and 
intellectual  companionship  of  this  re- 
markable woman.  Their  relations  form 
one  of  the  great  love  romances  of  the 
last  century. 

Liszt's  letters  to  the  Princess,  written 
in  French  and  still  untranslated,  are 
in  four  volumes.  They  were  published 
by  the  Princess's  daughter.  Princess 
Marie  Hohenlohe,  as  a  tribute  to  Liszt 
the  musician  and  the  man.  They  teem 
with  his  musical  activities— informa- 
tion regarding  the  numerous  celebri- 
ties with  whom  he  was  intimate,  the 
musicians  he  aided,  his  own  great 
works.  But  their  rarest  charm  to  me 
lies  in  the  fact  that  from  them  the  care- 
ful reader  can  glean  the  whole  story  of 
116 


FRANZ    LISZT. 
Painting  by  Ary  Scheffer. 


d^reat  Compoget0 

the  romance  of  Liszt  and  Carolyne, 
from  its  very  beginnings  to  his  death. 

We  know  the  fascinating  male  figure 
in  this  romance — the  extraordinary 
combination  of  unapproached  virtu- 
oso, great  composer,  and  man  of  the 
world ;  but  who  was  the  equally  fasci- 
nating woman? 

Carolyne  von  Iwanowska  was  born 
near  Kiew,  Russian  Poland,  in  Febru- 
ary, 1819.  When  she  still  was  young 
her  parents  separated,  and  she  divided 
her  time  between  them.  Her  mother 
possessed  marked  social  graces,  tra- 
velled much,  was  a  favorite  at  many 
courts,  and,  as  a  pupil  of  Rossini's  in 
singing,  was  admired  by  Spontini  and 
Meyerbeer,  and  was  sought  after  in  the 
most  select  salons,  including  that  of 
Metternich,  the  Austrian  chancellor. 
From  her  Carolyne  inherited  her  charm 
of  manner. 

Intellectually,  however,  she  was 
wholly  her  father's  child;  and  he  was 
her  favorite  parent.  He  was  a  wealthy 

117 


Cl)e  JLotes  of 

landed  proprietor,  and  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  his  estates,  he  frequently  con- 
sulted her.  Moreover  he  had  an  active, 
studious  mind,  and  he  found  in  her  an 
interested  companion  in  his  pursuits. 
Often  they  sat  up  until  late  into  the 
night  discussing  various  questions, 
and  both  of  them  —  smoking  strong 
cigars! 

In  1836  her  hand  was  asked  in  mar- 
riage by  Prince  Nicolaus  von  Sayn- 
Wittgenstein.  She  thrice  refused,  but 
finally  accepted  him  at  her  father's  in- 
stigation. The  prince  was  a  handsome 
but  otherwise  commonplace  man,  and 
not  at  all  the  husband  for  this  charm- 
ing, mentally  alert  and  finely  strung 
woman.  The  one  happiness  that  came 
to  her  through  this  marriage  was  her 
daughter  Marie. 

Liszt  came  to  Kiew  on  a  concert  tour 
in  February,  1847.  He  announced  a 
charity  concert,  for  which  he  received 
a  contribution  of  one  hundred  rubles 
from  Princess  Carolyne.  H  e  already  had 
118 


d^reat  Composers 

heard  of  her,  but  she  had  been  described 
to  him  as  a  miserly  and  peculiar  per- 
son. The  gift  surprised  him  the  more 
for  this.  He  called  on  her  to  thank  her, 
found  her  a  brilliant  conversationalist, 
was  charmed  with  her  in  everyway,  and 
concluded  that  what  the  gossips  con- 
sidered peculiarities  were  merely  the 
evidences  of  an  original  and  positive 
mentality.  Upon  the  woman,  who  was 
in  revolt  against  the  restraints  of  an 
unhappy  married  life,  Liszt,  from  whose 
eyes  shone  the  divine  spark,  who  was 
as  much  au  fait  in  the  salon  as  at  the 
piano,  and  who  already  had  been  wor- 
shipped by  a  long  succession  of  wo- 
men, made  a  deep  impression.  Thus 
they  were  drawn  to  each  other  at  this 
very  first  meeting. 

When,  a  little  later,  Liszt  took  her  in- 
to his  confidence  regarding  his  ambi- 
tion to  devote  more  time  to  composi- 
tion, and  communicated  to  her  his  idea 
of  composing  a  symphony  on  Dante's 
"Divine  Comedy"  with  scenic  illus- 

119 


C|)e  %.o\its  of 

trations,  she  offered  to  pay  the  twenty- 
thousand  thalers  which  these  would 
cost.  Liszt  subsequently  changed  his 
mind  regarding  the  need  of  scenery  to 
his  "Dante,"  but  the  Princess's  gener- 
ous offer  increased  his  admiration  for 
her.  It  was  a  tribute  to  himself  as  well 
as  to  his  art,  and  an  expression  of  her 
confidence  in  his  genius  as  a  composer 
(shared  at  that  time  by  but  few)  which 
could  not  fail  to  touch  him  deeply.  It 
at  once  created  a  bond  of  artistic  and 
personal  sympathy  between  them.  She 
was  carried  away  by  his  playing,  and 
the  programme  of  his  first  concert 
which  she  attended  was  treasured  by 
her,  and  after  her  death,  forty  years 
later,  was  found  among  her  posses- 
sions by  her  daughter. 

If  it  was  not  love  at  first  sight  between 
these  two,  it  must  have  been  nearly 
that.  Liszt  came  to  Kiew  in  February, 
i847.Thesame  month  Carolyne  invited 
him  to  visit  her  at  one  of  her  coun- 
try seats,  Woronince.  Brief  correspon- 

120 


LISZT  AT  THE  PIANO 


%i!  -m^ 


(threat  Composers 

dence  already  had  passed  between 
them.To  his  fifth  note  he  adds,  as  a  post- 
script, "I  am  in  the  best  of  humor . . . 
and  find,  now  that  the  world  contains 
Woronince,  that  the  world  is  good,  very 
good!" 

The  great  pianist  continued  his  tour 
to  Constantinople.  When  he  writes  to 
the  Princess  from  there,  he  already  "is 
at  her  feet."  Later  in  the  same  year  he 
is  hers  "heart  and  soul."  Early  the  fol- 
lowing year  he  quotes  for  her  these 
lines  from  "  Paradise  Lost : " 

"For  contemplation  he,  and  valour  formed, 
For  softness  she,  and  sweet  attractive  grace ; 
He  for  God  only,  she  for  God  in  him!" 

She  presents  him  with  a  baton  set 
with  jewels ;  he  writes  to  her  about  the 
first  concert  at  which  he  will  use  it  He 
transcribes  Schubert's  lovely  song, 
"My  sweet  Repose,  My  Peace  art 
Thou,"  and  tells  her  that  he  can  play  it 
only  for  her.  At  the  same  time  their  let- 
ters to  each  other  are  filled  with  refer- 
ences to  public  affairs  and  literary,  ar- 

121 


C|)e  JLotoeg  of 

tistic  and  musical  matters.  They  are 
the  letters  of  two  people  of  broad  and 
cultivated  taste,  who  are  drawn  to  each 
other  by  every  bond  of  intellect  and 
sentiment.  Is  it  a  wonder  that  but  lit- 
tle more  than  a  year  after  they  met,  the 
Princess  decided  to  burn  her  bridges 
behind  her  and  leave  her  husband? 
Through  his  friend.  Prince  Felix  Lich- 
nowsky,  Liszt  arranged  that  they 
should  meet  at  Krzyzanowitz,  one  of 
the  Lichnowsky  country  seats  in  Aus- 
trian Silesia.  "May  the  angel  of  the 
Lord  lead  you,  my  radiant  morning 
star!"  he  exclaims.  At  the  same  time 
he  has  an  eye  to  the  practical  side  of 
the  affair,  and  describes  the  place  as 
just  the  one  for  their  meeting  point,  be- 
cause Lichnowsky  will  be  too  busy  to 
remain  there,  and  there  will  not  be  a 
soul  about,  save  the  servants. 

It  was  shortly  before  the  revolution 

of  1848.  To  gain  permission  to  cross 

the  border,  the  Princess  pretended  to 

be  bound  for  Carlsbad,  for  the  waters. 

122 


(Bxtat  Compo0er0 

Liszt's  valet  met  her  and  her  daughter 
as  soon  as  they  were  out  of  Russia,  took 
them  to  Ratibor,  where  they  were  re- 
ceived by  Lichnowsky,  who  conducted 
them  to  Liszt.  After  a  few  days  at  this 
place  of  meeting,  they  went  to  Graz, 
where  they  spent  a  fortnight  in  an- 
other of  the  Lichnowsky  villas.  Among 
the  miscellaneous  correspondence  of 
Liszt  is  a  letter  from  Graz  to  his  friend 
Franz  von  Schober,  councillor  of  lega- 
tion at  Weimar,  where  Liszt  was  set- 
tled as  court  conductor.  In  it  he  de- 
scribes the  Princess  as  "without  doubt 
an  uncommonly  and  thoroughly  bril- 
liant example  of  soul  and  mind  and  in- 
telligence (with  a  prodigious  amount 
of  esprit  as  well).  You  readily  will  un- 
derstand," he  adds,  "that  henceforth 
I  can  dream  very  little  of  personal  am- 
bition and  of  a  future  wrapped  up  in 
myself.  In  political  relations  serfdom 
may  have  an  end;  but  the  dominion  of 
one  soul  over  another  in  the  spirit  re- 
gion—should that  not  remain  inde- 

123 


Cl)e  3Lotje0  of 

structible?"— Oh,  Liszt's  prophetic 
soul!  Thereafter  his  life  was  shaped 
by  this  extraordinary  woman,  for  weal 
and,  it  must  be  confessed,  for  reasons 
which  will  appear  later,  partly  for  woe. 

The  Grandduchess  of  Weimar  took 
the  Princess  under  her  protection,  and 
she  settled  at  Weimar  in  the  Alten- 
burg,  while  Liszt  lived  in  the  Hotel 
zum  Erbprinzen.  Many  tender  mis- 
sives passed  between  them.  "Bon jour, 
mon  bonange!"  writes  Liszt.  "Onvous 
aime  et  vous  adore  du  matin  au  soir  et 
du  soir  au  matin." — "On  vous  attend 
et  vous  b6nit,  ch^re  douce  lumi^re  de 
mon  ^me!" — "Je  suis  triste  comme 
toujours  et  toutes  les  fois  que  je  n'en- 
tends  pas  votre  voix — que  je  ne  re- 
garde  pas  vos  yeux." 

One  of  the  billets  relates  to  an  inci- 
dent that  has  become  historic.  Wag- 
ner had  been  obliged,  because  of  his 
participation  in  the  revolution,  to  flee 
from  Dresden.  He  sought  refuge  with 
Liszt  in  Weimar,  but,  learning  that 
124 


THE  PRINCESS  CAROLYNE  IN   HER  LATER  YEARS  AT  ROME 


(threat  Compogers 

the  Saxon  authorities  were  seeking 
to  apprehend  him,  decided  to  con- 
tinue his  flight  to  Switzerland.  He  was 
without  means  and,  at  the  moment, 
Liszt,  too,  was  out  of  funds.  In  this  ex- 
tremity, Liszt  despatched  a  few  lines 
to  the  Princess.  "Can  you  send  me 
by  bearer  sixty  thalers?  Wagner  is 
obliged  to  flee,  and  I  am  unable  at  pre- 
sent to  come  to  his  aid.  Bonne  et  heu- 
reuse  nuit."  The  money  was  forthcom- 
ing, and  Wagner  owed  his  safety  to 
the  Princess.  This  is  but  one  instance 
in  which,  at  Liszt's  instigation,  she 
was  the  good  fairy  of  poor  musicians. 
About  ayear  after  the  Pf  incesssettled 
in  the  Altenburg,  Liszt,  too,  took  up 
his  residence  there.  From  that  time  un- 
til they  left  it,  it  was  the  Mecca  of  mu- 
sical Europe.  Thither  came  Von  Billow 
and  Rubinstein,  then  young  men ;  Joa- 
chim andWieniawski;  Brahms,  on  his 
way  to  Schumann,  who,  as  the  result 
of  this  visit  from  Brahms,  wrote  the  fa- 
mousarticle  hailing  him  as  the  coming 

125 


C|)e  JLo\)ts  of 

Messiah  of  music;  Berlioz,  and  many, 
many  others.  The  Altenburg  was  the 
headquarters  of  the  Wagner  propa- 
ganda. From  there  came  material  and 
artistic  comfort  to  Wagner  during 
the  darkest  hours  of  his  exile  and  po- 
verty. 

Wendelin  Weissheimer,  a  German 
orchestral  leader,  a  friend  of  Liszt  and 
Wagner,  and  of  many  other  notable 
musicians  of  his  day,  has  given  in  his 
reminiscences  (which  should  have 
been  translated  long  ago)  a  delightful 
glimpse  of  life  at  the  Altenburg.  He 
describes  a  dinner  at  which  Von  Bron- 
sart,  the  composer,  and  Count  Lauren- 
cin,  the  musical  writer,  were  the  other 
guests.  At  table  the  Princess  did  the 
honors  "most  graciously,"  and  her  "di- 
vinity," Franz  Liszt,  was  in  "buoyant 
spirits. "  After  the  champagne,  the  com- 
pany rose  and  went  upstairs  to  the 
smoking-room  and  music  salon,  which 
formed  one  apartment,  "for  with  Liszt, 
smoking  and  music-making  were,  on 
126 


(threat  Compo2er0 

such  occasions,  inseparable."  One 
touch  in  Weissheimer's  description 
recalls  the  Princesses  early  acquired 
habit  of  smoking. 
"He  [Liszt]  always  had  excellent 
Havanas,  of  unusual  length,  ready,  and 
they  were  passed  around  with  the 
coffee.  The  Princess  also  had  come  up- 
stairs. When  Liszt  sat  down  at  one  of 
the  two  pianos,  she  drew  an  armchair 
close  up  to  it  and  seated  herself  expec- 
tantly, also  with  one  of  the  long  Ha- 
vanas  in  her  mouth  and  pulling  delec- 
tably  at  it.  We  others,  too,  drew  up  near 
Liszt,  who  had  the  manuscript  of  his 
*  Faust'  symphony  open  before  him.  Of 
course  he  played  the  whole  orchestra; 
of  course  the  way  in  which  he  did  it 
was  indescribable ;  and — of  course  we 
all  were  in  the  highest  state  of  exalta- 
tion. After  the  glorious  'Gretchen'  di- 
vision of  the  symphony,  the  Princess 
sprang  up  from  the  armchair,  caught 
hold  of  Liszt  and  kissed  him  so  fer- 
vently that  we  all  were  deeply  moved. 

127 


Cl)e  ilotjes  of 

[In  the  interim  her  long  Havana  had 
gone  out.]" 

Theyears  which  Liszt  passed  with  the 
Princess  at  the  Altenburg,  and  when 
he  was  most  directly  under  her  influ- 
ence, were  the  most  glorious  in  his  ca- 
reer. Besides  the  "Faust"  symphony, 
he  composed  during  this  period  the 
twelve  symphonic  poems,  thus  origi- 
nating a  new  and  highly  important 
musical  form,  which  may  be  said  to 
bear,  in  their  liberation  from  pedantry, 
the  same  relation  to  the  set  symphony 
that  the  music  drama  does  to  opera; 
the  "Rhapsodies  Hongroises;"  his 
piano  sonata  and  concertos ;  the  "Gra- 
ner  Messe;"  and  the  beginnings  of  his 
"Christus"  and  "Legend  of  the  Holy 
Elizabeth."  The  Princess  ordered  the 
household  arrangements  in  such  a 
way  that  the  composer  should  not  be 
disturbed  in  his  work.  No  one  was  ad- 
mitted to  him  without  her  vis6 ;  she  at- 
tended to  the  voluminous  correspon- 
dence which,  with  a  man  of  so  much 
128 


(threat  Composetg 

natural  courtesy  as  Liszt,  would  have 
occupied  an  enormous  amount  of  his 
time.  He  was  the  acknowledged  head 
of  the  Wagner  movement,  at  that  time 
regarded  as  nothing  short  of  revolu- 
tionary; he  was  looked  upon  as  the 
friend  of  all  progressive  propaganda 
in  his  art;  to  play  for  Liszt,  to  have  his 
opinion  on  performance  or  composi- 
tion, was  the  ambition  of  every  musical 
celebrity,  or  would-be  one;  his  coop- 
eration in  innumerable  concerts  and 
music  festivals  was  sought  for.  His  was 
a  name  to  conjure  with.  Between  him 
and  these  assaults  on  his  almost  pro- 
verbial kindness  stood  the  Princess, 
and  the  list  of  his  great  musical  pro- 
ductions during  this  period,  to  say 
nothing  of  his  literary  work,  like  the 
rhapsody  on  Chopin,  is  the  tale  of  what 
the  world  owes  her  for  her  devotion. 
The  relations  between  Liszt  and  the 
Princess  were  frankly  acknowledged, 
and  by  the  world  as  frankly  accepted, 
as  if  they  were  two  exceptional  beings 

129 


Clje  Jlotoes  of 

in  whom  one  could  pardon  things 
which  in  the  case  of  ordinary  mortals 
would  mean  social  ostracism.The  near- 
est approach  to  this  situation  was  that 
of  George  Eliot  and  Lewes.  But  with 
Liszt  and  his  Princess  the  world,  pos- 
sibly after  the  fashion  of  the  Continent, 
was  far  more  lenient,  and  their  lives  in 
their  outward  aspects  were  far  more 
brilliant.  No  exalted  mind  in  literature, 
music,  art  or  science  passed  through 
Weimar,  or  came  near  it,  without  being 
drawn  to  the  Altenburg  as  by  a  magnet. 
There  seems  to  have  been  within  its 
walls  an  almost  uninterrupted  intel- 
lectual revel,  or,  to  use  a  trite  expres- 
sion, which  here  is  most  apt,  a  steady 
feast  of  reason  and  flow  of  soul.  The 
sojournjof  Liszt  and  the  Princess  in  the 
Altenburg  was  a  "golden  period"  for 
Weimar,  a  revival  of  the  time  when 
Goethe  lived  there  and  reflected  his 
glory  upon  it. 

And  yet— convention  is  the  result  of 
the  concentrated  essence  of  the  expe- 
130 


(Bxtat  Compo0er0 

rience  of  ages ;  and  no  one  seems  able 
to  break  through  it  without  the  effort 
leaving  a  scar.  It  cast  its  shadow  even 
over  the  life  at  the  Altenburg.  There 
remained  one  great  longing  to  the  Prin- 
cess, the  nonfulfilment  of  which  was 
as  a  void  in  her  soul.  She  yearned  to 
bear  the  name  of  the  man  she  adored. 
During  the  twelve  years  of  their  Wei- 
mar sojourn  she  battled  for  it,  but  in 
vain.  Then  she  transferred  the  battle- 
field to  Rome. 
Her  husband,  a  Protestant,  had  found 
no  difficulty  in  securing  a  divorce  from 
her.  She  was  an  ardent  Roman  Cath- 
olic, and  the  church  stood  in  her  way, 
her  own  relatives,  who  had  been  scan- 
dalized at  her  flight,  being  active  in 
invoking  its  opposition.  She  went  to 
Rome  in  the  spring  of  i860,  to  press 
her  suit  at  the  very  centre  of  churchly 
authority.  Liszt  remained  in  Weimar 
awaiting  word  from  her.  It  took  her 
more  than  a  year  to  secure  the  Pa- 
pal sanction.  Then,  when  everything 

131 


Cije  3lot)e0  of 

seemed  auspiciously  settled  and  her 
marriage  with  Liszt  a  certainty,  her  en- 
thusiasm led  her  to  take  a  step  which, 
at  the  very  last  moment,  proved  fatal 
to  her  long-cherished  hope. 

Had  she  returned  at  once  to  Weimar, 
her  union  with  Liszt  undoubtedly 
would  have  taken  place.  But  no.  In  her 
joy  she  must  go  too  far.  In  Rome,  there 
where  the  marriage  had  been  inter- 
dicted, there  where  she  had  success- 
fully overcome  opposition  to  it,  there  it 
should  take  place.  Her  triumph  should 
be  complete. 

Liszt  was  sent  for.  His  last  two  letters 
to  her  before  their  meeting  in  Rome 
are  dated  from  Marseilles  in  October, 
1861.  The  marriage  was  to  take  place 
October  22,  his  fiftieth  birthday.  He 
writes  her  from  the  Hotel  des  Empe- 
reurs,  himself  "plus  heureux  que  tous 
les  empereurs  du  monde!"  and  again, 
"Mon  long  exil  va  finir."  Yet  it  was 
only  just  beginning! 

He  arrived  in  Rome  on  October  20. 
132 


d^reat  Compo0er0 

All  arrangements  for  the  ceremony  in 
the  San  Carlo  al  Corso  had  been  made. 
Then,  by  a  strange  fatality,  it  chanced 
that  several  of  the  Princess's  relations, 
who  were  most  bitter  against  her,  en- 
tered upon  the  scene.  Of  all  times,  they 
happened  to  be  in  Rome  at  this  critical 
moment,  and,  getting  wind  of  the  im- 
pending marriage,  they  entered  a  vio- 
lent protest.  When,  on  the  evening  of 
the  2ist,  Liszt  was  visiting  the  Prin- 
cess, a  Papal  messenger  called  and  an- 
nounced that  His  Holiness  had  decided 
to  forbid  the  ceremony  until  he  could 
look  into  the  matter  more  fully,  and  re- 
quested from  her  a  resubmission  of  the 
documents  bearing  on  the  case. 
To  the  Princess,  then  on  the  threshold 
of  realizing  her  most  cherished  hopes, 
this  was  the  last  stroke.  Her  over- 
wrought nature  saw  in  it  a  judgment 
of  Heaven.  She  refused  to  resubmit  the 
papers;  and  even,  when  a  few  years 
later.  Prince  Wittgenstein  died  and 
she  was  free,  she  regarded  marriage 

133 


Cl)e  Jlotjes  of 

with  Liszt  as  opposed  by  the  Divine 
will.  A  strain  of  mysticism,  nurtured  by 
busy  ecclesiastics,  developed  itself  in 
her ;  she  became  possessed  of  the  idea 
that  she  was  a  chosen  instrument  in 
the  Church's  hands  to  further  its  in- 
terests ;  and  with  feverish,  desperate 
energy  she  devoted  herself  to  literary 
work  as  its  champion.  She  had  her  own 
press,  which  set  up  each  day's  work 
and  showed  it  to  her  in  proof  the  next. 
She  did  not  leave  Rome  except  on  one 
occasion,  and  then  for  less  than  a  day, 
during  the  remaining  twenty-six  years 
of  her  life. 
It  has  been  hinted  more  than  once 
that  the  Princess's  course  was  not  as 
completely  governed  by  religious  mys- 
ticism as  might  be  supposed— that  her 
sensitive  nature  had  divined  in  Liszt 
an  unexpressed  opposition  to  the  mar- 
riage, as  if,  possibly,  he  did  not  wish  to 
be  tied  down  to  her,  yet  felt  bound  in 
honor,  because  of  the  sacrifices  she 
had  made  for  him,  to  appear  to  share 
134 


(threat  Compo0er0 

her  hope.  La  Mara  (Marie  Lipsius),  the 
editor  of  the  Liszt  letters  and  whose 
interesting  notes  form  the  connecting 
links  in  the  correspondence,  does  not 
take  this  view.  It  is  noticeable,  how- 
ever, although  Liszt  and  the  Princess 
saweach  other  frequently  whenever  he 
was  in  Rome,  and  he  became  an  abb6 
probably  through  her  influence,  that 
while  in  some  of  his  letters  to  her  in 
later  years  there  are  notes  of  regret, 
those  written  after  the  crisis  in  Rome 
breathe  an  intellectual  rather  than  a 
personal  affinity. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  it  was  a  tragedy  in 
his  life  as  well  as  in  her  own.  Practi- 
cally the  rest  of  his  life  was  divided, 
each  year,  between  Budapest,  at  the 
Conservatory  there;  Weimar,  but  no 
longer  at  the  Altenburg;  and  Rome, 
but  not  at  the  Princess's  residence. 
Piazza  di  Spagna.  Thus  he  had  three 
homes— none  of  which  was  home.  The 
"golden  period"  of  his  life,  as  well  as 
the  Altenburg  itself,  where  others  now 

135 


C!)e  JLo^efif  of 

were  installed,  were  dim  shadows  of 
the  past.  Liszt  was  the  ^' grand  old 
man  "  of  the  piano,  and  is  a  great  figure 
among  composers ;  but  whoever  knows 
the  story  of  the  last  years  of  his  life, 
sees  him  a  wandering  and  pathetic  fig- 
ure. He  died  at  Bayreuth  in  July,  1886; 
Carolyne  survived  him  less  than  a  year. 
The  literary  work  of  her  twenty-six 
years  in  Rome  probably  will  be  forgot- 
ten ;  it  will  be  the  linking  of  her  name 
with  Liszt,  and  its  association  with  the 
"golden  period"  of  Weimar,  that  will 
cause  her  to  be  remembered. 


136 


Magnet? 
anQ  Co$ima 


Wlagner 

mis  Co2^tma 


[O  woman  not  a  professional 
musician  has  ever  played  so 
important  a  part  in  musical 
history  as  "Frau  Cosima," 
the  widow  of  Richard  Wagner.  In  fact, 
has  any  woman,  professional  musician 
or  not?  Bear  in  mind  who  "Frau  Co- 
sima" is.  She  is  the  daughter  of  Franz 
Liszt,  the  greatest  pianist  and  one  of 
the  great  composers  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, and  was  the  wife  and,  in  the  most 
exalted  meaning  of  the  term,  the  help- 
meet of  the  greatest  of  all  composers! 
The  two  men  with  whom  Cosima  has 
thus  stood  in  such  intimate  relation 
are  exceptional  even  among  great 
musicians.  Composers  are  usually 
strongly  emotional,  inspired  in  all  that 
pertains  to  their  art,  but  with  a  spe- 
cialist's lack  of  interest  in  everything 
else.  Not  so,  however,  Liszt  or  Wag- 

139 


Ci)e  5lot)e0  of 

ner,  for  not  since  the  time  of  Beethoven 
had  there  been  two  musicians  who,  in 
the  exercise  of  their  art,  approached 
it  from  so  clear  an  intellectual  standi 
point.  Beethoven  through  the  great- 
ness of  his  mind  was  able  to  enlarge 
the  symphonic  form,  which  had  been 
left  by  Haydn  and  Mozart.  It  became 
more  responsive,  more  plastic,  in  his 
hands.  Form  in  art  is  the  creation  of 
the  intellect ;  what  goes  into  it  is  the 
outflow  of  the  heart.  Thus  Liszt  ere 
ated  the  Symphonic  Poem,  and  Wag 
ner  completely  revolutionized  the  mu 
sical  stage  by  creating  the  Music 
Drama.  Into  the  Symphonic  Poem, 
into  the  Music-Drama,  they  put  their 
hearts ;  but  the  creation  of  these  forms 
was  in  each  an  intellectual  tour  de 
force.  The  musician  who  thinks  as 
well  as  feels  is  the  one  who  advances 
his  art.  In  the  historic  struggle  be- 
tween Wagner  and  the  classicists 
Liszt  played  a  large  part.  He  was  the 
first  to  produce  "Lohengrin" — was,  as 
140 


RICHARD    WAGNER 
From  the  original  lithograph  of  the  Egusquiza  portrait 


^IC 


6:    (■■ 


(threat  Composer0 

orchestral  conductor,  its  subtle  inter- 
preter, and,  thus,  a  pioneer  of  the  new 
school;  he  was  Wagner's  steadfast 
champion  through  life,  and  a  beautiful 
friendship  existed  between  "Richard" 
and  "Franz." 

Even  now  the  reader  can  begin  to 
realize  the  role  Cosima  has  played  in 
music.  That  she  is  the  daughter  of 
Liszt  is  not  in  itself  wonderful,  but  that 
she  should  have  fulfilled  the  mission  to 
which  she  was  born  is  one  of  the  most 
exquisite  touches  of  fate.  Liszt  was 
one  of  Wagner's  first  champions  and 
friends.  He  came  to  the  composer's  aid 
in  the  darkest  years  of  his  career — 
during  that  long  exile  after  Wagner 
had  been  obliged  to  flee  from  Germany 
because  of  his  participation  in  the  re- 
volution of  1848.  It  was,  in  fact,  through 
Liszt  thatWagner  received  the  means 
to  continue  his  flight  from  the  Saxon 
authorities  and  cross  the  border  to 
safety  in  Switzerland. 

Nor   did    Liszt's   beneficence   stop 

141 


ts^lje  3lote0  of 

there.  From  afar  he  continued  to  be 
Wagner^s  good  fairy.  To  fully  appre- 
ciate Liszt's  action  at  this  time,  one 
must  keep  in  mind  the  position  of  the 
Saxon  composer.  To-day  his  fame  is 
world-wide;  we  can  scarcely  realize 
that  there  was  a  time  when  his  genius 
was  not  recognized,  but  at  that  time 
he  was  not  famous  at  all.  Those  who 
had  the  slightest  premonition  of  what 
the  future  would  accord  him  were  a 
mere  handful  of  enthusiasts.  Such  a 
thing  as  a  Wagner  cult  was  undreamed 
of.  Hehad  produced  three  worksforthe 
stage.  "Rienzi"  had  been  a  brilliant 
success,  "The  Flying  Dutchman"  a 
mere  succes  d'estime,  "Tannhauser"a 
comparative  failure.  From  a  popular 
point  of  view  he  had  not  sustained  the 
promise  of  his  first  work.  We  know 
now  that  compared  with  his  second  and 
third  works  "Rienzi"  is  trash,  and  that 
rarely  has  a  composer  made  such  won- 
derful forward  strides  in  his  art  as  did 
Wagner  with  "The  Flying  Dutch- 
142 


d^reat  Composer0 

man  "and  "Tannhauser."  But  that  was 
not  the  opinion  when  they  were  pro- 
duced. The  former,  although  it  is  now 
acknowledged  to  be  an  exquisitely 
poetic  treatment  of  the  weird  legend, 
was  voted  sombre  and  dull,  and  "Tann- 
hauser"  was  simply  a  puzzle.  After  lis- 
tening to  "Tannhauser,"  Schumann 
declared  that  Wagner  was  unmusical ! 
Unless  a  person  is  familiar  with  Wag- 
ner's life,  it  is  impossible  to  believe 
how  bitter  was  the  opposition  to  his 
theories  and  to  his  music.  Does  it  seem 
possible  now  that  he  had  to  struggle 
for  twenty-five  years  before  he  could 
secure  the  production  of  his  "Ring  of 
the  Nibelung"?  Yet  such  was  the  case. 
Then,  too,  he  was  poor,  and  sometimes 
driven  to  such  straits  that  he  contem- 
plated suicide. 

When  the  public  remained  indifferent 
to  one  of  his  works  and  critics  reviled 
it,  Wagner's  usual  method  of  reply 
was  to  produce  something  still  more 
advanced.  Thus,  when  "Tannhauser" 

^43 


Cl)e  JLo\jes  of 

proved  caviar  to  the  public,  and  seemed 
to  affect  the  critics  like  a  red  rag  waved 
before  a  bull,  he  promptly  sat  down  and 
wrote  and  composed  "  Lohengrin."  But 
how  should  he,  an  exile,  secure  its  pro- 
duction? There  it  lay  a  mute  score.  As 
he  turned  its  pages,  the  notes  looked 
out  at  him  appealingly  for  a  hearing. 
It  was  like  a  homesick  child  asking 
for  its  own.  What  did  Wagner  do?  He 
wrote  a  few  lines  to  Liszt.  The  answer 
was  not  long  in  coming.  Liszt  was  al- 
ready making  the  necessary  arrange- 
ments to  accede  to  Wagner's  request 
and  produce  "Lohengrin "in  Weimar, 
where  he  was  musical  director.  Liszt's 
name  gave  great  6clat  to  the  under- 
taking; and  through  the  acclaim  which, 
with  the  aid  of  his  pupils  and  admirers, 
he  understood  so  well  how  to  create,  it 
attracted  widespread  attention,  musi- 
cians from  far  and  near  in  Germany 
coming  to  hear  it.  Of  course,  opinions 
on  the  work  were  divided,  but  the  band 
ofWagner  enthusiasts  received  acces- 
144 


(threat  Compo0er0 

sions,  and  the  interest  in  the  produc- 
tion had  been  too  intense  not  to  leave 
an  impression.  The  performance  was, 
in  fact,  epoch-making.  It  raised  a 
"Wagner  question"  which  would  not 
down;  which  kept  at  least  his  earlier 
works  before  the  public;  and  which 
made  him,  even  while  still  a  fugitive 
from  Germany,  and  an  exile,  a  promi- 
nent figure  in  the  musical  circles  of  the 
country  that  refused  him  the  right  to 
cross  its  borders. 

All  this  was  done  by  Liszt.  Next  to 
Wagner's  own  genius,  which  would 
eventually  have  fought  its  way  into  the 
open,  the  influence  that  first  brought 
Wagner  some  degree  of  recognition 
was  Franz  Liszt.  His  assistance  to 
Wagner  at  this  stage  in  that  compos- 
er's career  cannot  be  overestimated. 
He  was  his  tonic  in  despair,  his  solace 
in  his  darkest  hours.  Few  men  appear 
in  a  nobler  role  than  Liszt  in  his  cor- 
respondence with  Wagner  during  this 
period.  Is  it  not  marvellous  that  some 

145 


C|)e  ILot)e0  of 

twenty  years  later,  at  another  crisis  in 
Wagner's  life,  another  being  came  to 
his  aid  and  became  to  him  as  a  haven 
of  rest ;  and  that  that  being  should  have 
been  none  other  than  the  daughter  of 
his  earlier  benefactor,  Franz  Liszt? 
Fate  often  is  cruel  and  often  unaccount- 
able, but  in  this  instance  it  seems  to 
have  acted  the  role  of  Cupid  with  an 
exquisite  sense  of  what  was  appropri- 
ate, and  to  have  set  the  crowning  glory 
of  a  great  woman's  love  upon  Wag- 
ner's career. 

When  Liszt  was  producing  "Lohen- 
grin," aiding  Wagner  pecuniarily,  and 
cheering  him  in  his  exile,  Cosima  Liszt 
was  a  young  girl  in  Paris,  where  she, 
her  elder  sister  Blandine  (afterward 
the  wife  of  Emile  Ollivier,  who  became 
thewarministerof  Napoleon  theThird) 
and  her  brother  Daniel  lived  with 
Liszt's  mother.  It  was  in  Mme.  Liszt's 
house  that  Wagner  first  met  her.  He 
had  gone  to  Paris  in  hopes  of  furthering 
his  cause  there.  During  his  sojourn  he 
146 


COSIMA.  WIFE  OF  WAGNER 
From  a  portrait  bust  made  before  her  marriage 


dPreat  Compo0er0 

held  a  reading  of  his  libretto  to  "The 
Ring  of  the  Nibelung'*at  Mme.  Liszt's 
before  a  choice  audience,  which  in- 
cluded Liszt,  Berlioz  and  Von  Biilow. 
This  occurred  in  the  early  fifties.  Co- 
sima,  who  was  among  the  listeners, 
was  at  the  time  fifteen  or  sixteen  years 
old.  The  mere  fact  of  her  presence  at 
the  reading  is  recorded.  Whether  she 
was  impressed  with  the  libretto  or  its 
author  we  do  not  know.  It  is  probable 
that  their  meeting  consisted  of  nothing 
more  than  the  mere  formal  introduc- 
tion of  the  composer  to  the  girl  who 
was  the  daughter  of  his  friend  Liszt, 
and  who  was  to  be  one  of  the  small  and 
privileged  gathering  at  the  reading. 
Wagner  soon  left  Paris,  and  if  she  made 
any  impression  on  him  at  that  time, 
he  does  not  mention  the  fact  in  his 
letters. 

Whoever  takes  the  trouble  to  read 
Liszt's  correspondence,  which  is  in  se- 
ven volumes  and  nearly  all  in  French, 
will  have  little  difficulty  in  discerning 

147 


C|)e  3Lot)e0  of 

that  Cosima  was  his  favorite  child.  He 
speaks  of  her  affectionately  as  **Co- 
sette"  and  "Cosimette."  Like  his  own, 
her  temperament  was  artistic  and  re- 
sponsive, and  she  also  inherited  his 
charm  of  manner  and  his  exquisite 
tact,  which,  if  anything,  herearly  bring- 
ing up  in  Paris  enhanced.  In  1857,  when 
she  was  twenty,  Wagner  sawher  again 
and  describes  her  as  "Liszt's  wonder- 
ful image,  but  of  superior  intellect." 

Well  might  Wagner  speak  of  her  re- 
semblance to  her  father  as  wonderful. 
I  have  seen  Liszt  and  Cosima  together, 
on  an  occasion  to  be  referred  to  later, 
and  was  struck  with  the  remarkable 
likeness  between  father  and  daughter. 

Both  were  idealists ;  if  he  had  his  eyes 
upon  the  stars,  so  had  she.  Here  is  a 
passage  from  one  of  Liszt's  letters: 

"Une  pensee  favorite  de  Cosima:  ^De 
quelque  cot6  qu'un  tourne  la  torche, 
la  flamme  se  redresse  et  monte  vers 
le  ciel.'"  ("A  favorite  thought  of  Co- 
sima's :  *  Whichever  way  you  may  turn 
148 


(threat  Composers 

the  torch,  the  flame  turns  on  itself  and 
still  points  toward  the  heavens.'") 

A  woman  whose  life  holds  that  motto 
is  in  herself  an  inspiration.  Whatever 
turn  fortune  takes,  her  aspirations  still 
blaze  the  way.  She  herself  is  the  torch 
of  her  motto. 

Although  not  a  musician,  although 
keeping  herself  consistently  in  the 
background  during  Wagner's  life 
(much  as  a  mere  private  secretary 
would),  her  influence  at  Bayreuth  was 
continually  felt;  and  since  his  death 
she  has  been  the  head  and  front  of  the 
Wagner  movement,  and  yet  without 
seeking  publicity.  Her  intellectual 
force  quietly  assured  her  the  succes- 
sion. There  have  been  protests  against 
her  absolute  rule,  but  she  has  serenely 
ignored  them.  She  still  moulds  to  her 
will  all  the  forces  concerned  in  the  Bay- 
reuth productions. 

When  Mme.  Nordica  was  preparing 
to  sing  "  Elsa  "  at  Bayreuth,  it  was  Frau 
Cosimawhowentovertherdlewithher, 

149 


C|)e  3Lot)e0  of 

sometimes  repeating  a  single  phrase  a 
hundred  times  in  order  to  assure  the 
correct  pronunciation  of  one  word.  It 
taxed  the  singer  to  the  utmost;  but  she 
found  Wagner's  widow  willing  to  work 
as  long  and  as  hard  as  she  herself 
would.  The  performance  established 
Mme.  Nordica  as  a  Wagner  singer. 
Despite  the  criticisms  that  have  been 
heaped  upon  Frau  Wagner  for  assum- 
ing to  set  herself  up  as  the  great  con- 
servator of  Wagnerian  traditions,  it  is 
significant  that  when,  some  years  later, 
Mme.  Nordica  decided  to  add  "Sieg- 
linde"  to  her  repertoire,  but  with  no 
special  purpose  of  singing  it  at  Bay- 
reuth,  she  arranged  with  Frau  Cosima 
to  go  over  the  role  with  her,  and  in  or- 
der to  do  so  made  a  trip  to  Switzerland, 
where  the  former  was  staying.  So  far 
as  adding  to  her  reputation  was  con- 
cerned, there  was  not  the  slightest  rea- 
son for  Mme.  Nordica  to  do  this.  That 
the  American  prima  donna  elected  to 
study  with  Frau  Cosima  shows  that 
150 


d^reat  Compogers 

she  must  have  found  Wagner's  widow 
a  woman  of  rare  temperament. 

Cosima  was  not  Wagner's  first  love, 
nor  even  his  first  wife.  For  in  Novem- 
ber, 1836,  he  had  married  Wilhelmina 
Planer,  the  leading  actress  of  the  the- 
atre in  Magdeburg  where  he  was  mu- 
sical director  of  opera.  Her  father  was 
a  spindle-maker.  It  is  said  that  her  de- 
sire to  earn  money  for  the  household, 
rather  than  the  impetus  of  a  well-de- 
fined histrionic  gift,  led  her  to  go  on 
the  stage;  but,  once  on  the  stage,  she 
discovered  that  she  had  unquestion- 
able talent,  and  played  leading  char- 
acters in  tragedyand  comedy  with  suc- 
cess. 

Minna  is  described  as  handsome,  but 
not  strikingly  so ;  of  medium  height  and 
slim  figure,  with  "soft,  gazelle-like 
eyes  which  were  a  faithful  index  of  a 
tender  heart. "  Later,  however,  the  Prin- 
cess Sayn-Wittgenstein  wrote  to  Liszt 
that  she  was  too  stout,  but  praised  her 
management  of  the  household  and  her 

151 


C|)e  Ilotjeg  of 

excellent  cuisine.  Her  nature  was  the 
very  opposite  of  Wagner's.  Where  he 
was  passionate,  strong-willed  and  am- 
bitious, she  was  gentle,  affectionate 
and  retiring.  Where  he  yearned  for  con- 
quest, she  wanted  only  a  well-regu- 
lated home.  But  she  could  not  follow 
him  in  his  art  theories,  and  as  they  as- 
sumed more  definite  shape  she  became 
less  and  less  able  to  comprehend  them 
and,  finally,  they  became  almost  a 
sealed  book  to  her. 

Doubtless,  the  ill  success  of  "The  Fly- 
ing Dutchman"  and  "Tannhauser," 
works  which,  after  "Rienzi,"  puzzled 
people,  engendered  her  first  misunder- 
standing of  Wagner's  genius.  Some 
may  be  surprised  that  this  lack  of  ap- 
preciation did  not  bring  about  a  sepa- 
ration sooner,  instead  of  after  nearly 
a  quarter  of  a  century  of  married  life. 
But  when  a  man  is  struggling  with 
poverty,  the  woman  who  unobtrusively 
aids  him  in  bearing  it  is  regarded  by 
him  as  an  angel  of  light,  and  the  ques- 
152 


Richard  and  Cosima  Wagner 


(threat  Compofi^ers 

tion  as  to  whether  she  appreciates  his 
genius  or  not  becomes  a  secondary  one 
in  the  struggle  for  existence. 

But  when  at  last  there  is  some  prom- 
ise of  success,  some  relief  from  drudg- 
ery, and  with  it  a  little  leisure  for 
companionship — then,  too,  there  is 
opportunity  for  an  estimate  of  intel- 
lectual quality.  Then  it  is  that  the  man 
of  genius  discovers  that  the  woman 
who  has  stood  by  him  through  his  po- 
verty lacks  the  graces  of  mind  neces- 
sary to  his  complete  happiness,  and 
the  self-sacrificing  wife  who  has  been 
his  drudge,  in  order  that  he  might  the 
better  meet  want,  and  who  has  per- 
haps lost  her  youth  and  her  looks  in 
his  service,  is  forgotten  for  some  one 
else.  The  worst  of  it  is  that  the  world 
forgets  her  and  all  she  has  done  for  the 
great  man  in  her  quiet,  uncomplaining 
way.  The  drudge  never  finds  a  page  in 
the  "Loves  of  the  Poets."  The  woman 
who  comes  in  and  reaps  where  the 
other  has  sown,  does. 

153 


Clje  3lot)e0  of 

Wagner's  friend,  Ferdinand  Praeger, 
has  much  to  say  of  Minna's  fine  qual- 
ities. But  he  also  tells  several  anecdotes 
which  completely  illustrate  how  abso- 
lutely she  failed  to  comprehend  Wag- 
ner's genius  and  ambition.  Praeger  vi- 
sited them  in  their  "trimly  kept  Swiss 
chalet"  in  Zurich  in  the  summer  of 
1856.  One  day  when  Praeger  and  Minna 
were  seated  at  the  luncheon  table  wait- 
ing for  Wagner,  who  was  scoring  the 
"Nibelung,"  to  come  down  from  his 
study,  she  asked:  "Now,  honestly,  is 
Richard  really  such  a  great  genius?" 
Remember  that  this  question  was 
asked  about  the  composer  of  "The 
Flying  Dutchman,"  "Tannhauser" 
and  "Lohengrin."  If  she  was  unable 
to  discover  his  genius  in  these,  how 
could  she  be  expected  to  follow  its  loft- 
ier flights  in  his  later  works? 

On  another  occasion  when  Wagner 

was  complaining  that  the  public  did 

not  understand  him,  she  said:  "Well, 

Richard,  why  don't  you  write  some- 

154 


(threat  Composers 

thing  for  the  gallery?" So  little  did  she 
understand  the  man  whose  genius  was 
founded  upon  unswerving  devotion  to 
artistic  truth. 

During  Praeger's  visit,  a  former 
singer  at  the  Magdeburg  opera  and 
her  two  daughters  called  on  Wagner. 
They  sang  the  music  of  the  Rhine- 
daughters  from  "Rheingold."  When 
they  finished  singing,  Minna  asked 
Praeger:  "Is  it  really  as  beautiful  as 
you  say?  It  does  not  seem  so  to  me, 
and  I  'm  afraid  it  would  not  sound  so 
to  others." 

While,  as  can  be  shown  from  pas- 
sages in  his  correspondence,  Wagner 
appreciated  the  homely  virtues  of  his 
first  wife,  and  never,  even  after  they 
had  separated,  allowed  a  word  to  be 
spoken  against  her,  the  last  years  of 
theirmarried  life  were  stormy.  She  had 
been  tried  beyond  her  strength,  and, 
not  sharing  her  husband's  enormous 
confidence  in  his  artistic  powers,  she 
had  not  the  stimulus  of  his  faith  in  his 

155 


Cl)e  JLotjeg  of 

ultimate  success  to  sustain  her.  More- 
over a  heart  trouble  with  which  she 
was  afflicted  resulted,  through  the 
strain  to  which  their  uncertain  mate- 
rial condition  subjected  her,  in  a  grow- 
ing irritability  which  was  accentu- 
ated by  jealousy  of  women  who  en- 
tered the  growing  circle  of  Wagner's 
admirers  as  his  genius  began  to  be  ap- 
preciated. 

The  crisis  came  in  1858,  when  they 
separated,  Minna  retiring  to  Dresden. 
Two  years  later,  when  Wagner  was  ill 
in  Paris,  she  went  there  and  nursed 
him,  but  they  separated  again.  An  in- 
teresting fact,  not  generally  known, 
is  that,  in  1862,  when  Wagner  was  in 
Biebrich  on  the  Rhine  composing  his 
"Meistersinger,"  Minna  came  from 
Dresden  as  a  surprise  to  pay  him  a 
visit — evidently  an  effort  to  effect  a 
reconciliation.  Wendelin  Weisshei- 
mer,  a  conductor  at  the  opera  in  May- 
euse  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  river 
and  a  close  friend  of  Wagner's  at  that 
156 


(threat  Compogerg 

time,  has  left  an  enlightening  record 
of  the  episode. 

Wagner,  he  says,  "the  heaven-storm- 
ing genius,  who  knew  no  bounds,  tried 
to  play  the  role  of  Hausvater— of  lov- 
ing husband  and  comforter.  He  had 
some  cold  edibles  brought  in  from  the 
hotel,  made  tea,  and  himself  boiled  half 
a  dozen  eggs.  [What  a  picture!  The 
composer  of  "Tristan"  boiling  eggs!] 
Afterwards  he  put  on  one  of  his  fami- 
liar velvet  dressing-gowns  and  a  fit- 
ting barretta,  and  proceeded  to  read 
aloud  the  book  of  *  Die  Meistersinger.' 

"The  first  act  passed  off  without  mis- 
hap save  for  some  unnecessary  ques- 
tions from  Minna.  But  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  second  act,  when  he  had 
described  the  stage-setting — *to  the 
right  the  cobbler  shop  of  Hans  Sachs ; 
to  the  left,'  etc.,  — Minna  exclaimed: 

"'And  here  sits  the  audience!*  at  the 
same  time  letting  a  bread-ball  rollover 
Wagner's  manuscript.  That  ended  the 
reading." 

157 


C|)e  ilotjefif  of 

The  visit  of  course  was  futile.  Minna 
returned  to  Dresden,  where  she  died  in 
1866.  Poor  Minna !  A  good  cook,  but  she 
did  not  appreciate  his  genius,  would 
seem  to  sum  up  her  story.  Yet  it  is  but 
just  that  we  should  pay  at  least  a  pass- 
ing salute  to  this  woman  who  was  the 
love  of  Wagner's  youth  and  the  drudge 
of  his  middle  life,  and  who,  from  the 
distance  of  her  lonely  separation,  saw 
him  basking  in  the  favor  of  the  king, 
who,  too  late  for  her,  had  become  his 
munificent  patron. — What  a  contrast 
between  her  fate  and  Cosima's! 

Were  it  not  for  Liszt's  letters,  meagre 
would  be  the  information  regarding 
Cosima  before  her  marriage  to  Wag- 
ner. But  by  going  over  his  voluminous 
correspondence  and  picking  out  re- 
ferences to  her  here  and  there,  I  am 
able  to  give  at  least  some  idea  of  her 
earlier  life. 

This  extraordinary  woman,  who 
brought  Wagner  so  much  happiness 
and  of  whom  it  may  be  said  that  no 
158 


(Bxtat  Composers 

other  woman  ever  played  so  important 
a  part  in  the  history  of  music,  came 
to  her  many  graces  and  accompHsh- 
ments  by  right  of  birth.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  Liszt  and  the  Countess 
d'AgouIt,  a  French  author,  better 
known  under  her  pen  name  of  "Daniel 
Stern."  Thus  she  had  genius  on  one 
side  of  her  parentage  and  distin- 
guished talent  on  the  other ;  and,  on 
both  sides,  rare  personal  charm  and 
tact. 

The  Countess  d'Agoult's  father,  Vis- 
count Flavigny,  was  an  old  Royalist 
nobleman.  While  an  emigr6  during  the 
revolution,  he  had  married  the  beauti- 
ful daughter  of  the  Frankfort  banker, 
Bethman.  After  the  Flavignys  re- 
turned to  France,  their  daughter, 
an  extremely  beautiful  blonde,  was 
brought  up,  partly  at  the  Flavigny 
chateau,  partly  at  the  Sacr6  Coeur  de 
Marie,  in  Paris.  Talented  beyond  her 
years,  her  wit  and  beauty  won  her 
much  admiration.  At  an  early  age  she 

159 


Cl)e  JLotoesf  of 


married  Count  Charies  d'Agoult,  a 
French  officer,  a  member  of  the  old 
aristocracy  and  twenty  years  her 
senior. 

When  she  first  met  Liszt  she  was 
twenty-nine  years  old,  had  been  mar- 
ried six  years  and  was  the  mother  of 
three  children.  She  still  was  beautiful, 
and  in  her  salon  she  gathered  around 
her  men  and  women  of  rank,  esprit 
and  fame.  In  1835  Liszt  left  Paris  after 
the  concert  season  there.  The  Coun- 
tess followed  him,  and  the  next  heard 
of  them  they  were  in  Switzerland. 
They  remained  together  six  years, 
Cosima,  born  in  1837,  being  one  of 
the  three  children  resulting  from  the 
union.  In  the  Countess's  relations  with 
Liszt  there  appears  to  have  been  a 
curious  mingling  of  la  grande  passion 
and  hauteur.  For  when,  soon  after  she 
had  joined  him  in  Switzerland,  he 
urged  her  to  secure  a  divorce  in  order 
that  they  might  marry,  she  drew  her- 
self up  and  replied: " Madame  la  Com- 
160 


<!5reat  Composers? 

tessed'Agoultne  sera  jamais  Madame 
Liszt!''  Certainly  none  but  a  French- 
woman would  have  been  capable  of 
such  a  reply  under  the  same  circum- 
stances. Equally  French  was  her  hus- 
band's remark  when,  the  Countess's 
support  having  been  assumed  by  Liszt, 
he  expressed  the  opinion  that  through- 
out the  whole  affair  the  pianist  had 
behaved  like  a  man  of  honor. 
After  the  separation  of  Liszt  and 
Countess  d'Agoult,  he  entrusted  the 
care  of  the  three  children  to  his  mother. 
During  a  brief  sojourn  in  Paris,  Wag- 
ner met  Cosima,  then  a  girl  of  six- 
teen, for  the  first  time.  She  formed 
with  Liszt,  Von  Biilow,  Berlioz  and  a 
few  others  the  very  small,  but  ex- 
tremely select,  audience  which,  at  the 
house  of  Liszt's  mother,  heard  Wag- 
ner read  selections  from  his  "Nibe- 
lung"  dramas.  In  1855,  the  burden  of 
the  care  of  the  children  falling  too 
heavily  upon  Liszt's  mother,  the  duty 
of  looking  after  the  daughters  was 

161 


CDe  ILot)e0  of 

cheerfully  undertaken  by  the  mother 
of  Hans  von  Biilow,  who  resided  in 
Berlin. 

In  a  letter  written  by  Von  Biilow  in 
June,  1856,  he  speaks  of  them  in  these 
interesting  terms:  "These  wonderful 
girls  bear  their  name  with  right — 
full  of  talent,  cleverness  and  life,  they 
are  interesting  personalities,  such  as  I 
have  rarely  met.  Another  than  I  would 
be  happy  in  their  companionship.  But 
their  evident  superiority  annoys  me, 
and  the  impossibility  to  appear  suffi- 
ciently interesting  to  them  prevents 
my  appreciating  the  pleasure  of  their 
society  as  much  as  I  would  like  to — 
there  you  have  a  confession,  the  can- 
dor of  which  you  will  not  deny.  It  is  not 
very  flattering  for  a  young  man,  but  it 
is  absolutely  true."  Yet,  a  year  later, 
he  married  Cosima,  one  of  the  girls 
whose  "superiority"  so  annoyed  him. 

How  strange,  in  view  of  what  hap- 
pened later,  that  Von  Biilow  so  planned 
his  wedding  trip  that  its  maiti  objec- 
162 


(threat  Composers 

tive  was  a  visit  to  Zurich  in  order  that 
he  might  present  Cosima  to  Wagner, 
who  had  not  seen  her  since  she  had 
formed  one  of  his  audience  at  the 
"Rheingold" reading  in  Paris.  It  is  in  a 
letter  to  his  friend,  Richard  Pohl,  writ- 
ten the  day  before  his  wedding,  that 
Von  Biilow  mentions  the  "Wagner- 
stadt,"  Zurich,  as  the  aim  of  his  wed- 
ding journey.  Was  it  Fate — or  fatality 
— that  led  him  thither  with  Cosima? 
The  daughter  of  Liszt,  the  bride  of  Von 
Biilow,  being  conducted  on  her  honey- 
moon to  the  very  lair  of  the  great  com- 
poser for  whom  she  was,  within  a  few 
years,  to  leave  her  husband!  What 
wonderful  musical  links  destiny  wove 
in  the  life  of  this  woman  who  herself 
was  not  a  musician! 

Hans  and  Cosima  arrived  at  Zurich 
early  in  September.  "For  the  last  fort- 
night," writes  Von  Biilow,  under  date 
of  September  19, 1857,  "I  and  my  wife 
have  been  living  in  Wagner's  house, 
and  I  do  not  know  anything  else  that 

163 


Cl)e  SLotjes  of 

could  have  afforded  me  such  benefit, 
such  refreshment  as  being  together 
with  this  wonderful,  unique  man,  whom 
one  should  worship  as  a  god." 

On  his  side  Wagner  was  charmed 
with  the  Von  Billows.  In  one  of  his  let- 
ters he  speaks  of  their  visit  as  his  most 
delightful  experience  of  the  summer. 
"They  spent  three  weeks  in  our  little 
house ;  I  have  rarely  been  so  pleasantly 
and  delightfully  affected  as  by  their  in- 
formal visit.  In  the  mornings  they  had 
to  keep  quiet,  for  I  was  writing  my 
'Tristan,*  of  which  I  read  them  an  act 
aloud  every  week.  If  you  knewCosima, 
you  would  agree  with  me  when  I  con- 
clude that  this  young  pair  is  wonder- 
fully well  mated.  With  all  their  great  in- 
telligence and  real  artistic  sympathy, 
there  is  something  so  light  and  buoy- 
ant in  the  two  young  people  that  one 
was  obliged  to  feel  perfectly  at  home 
with  them." 

Wagner  allowed  them  to  depart  only 
under  promise  that  they  would  return 
164 


(threat  Composers 

next  year,  which  they  did,  to  find  a 
household  on  the  verge  of  disruption 
and  to  be  unwilling  witnesses  to  some 
of  the  closing  scenes  of  Wagner's  first 
marriage. 

During  her  childhood  in  Paris  Cosima 
was  frail  and  delicate.  Liszt,  in  one  of 
his  letters,  confesses  that  this  caused 
him  to  regard  her  with  a  deeper  affec- 
tion than  he  bestowed  on  her  elder  sis- 
ter. Later  he  speaks  of  her  as  a  rare 
and  beautiful  nature  of  great  and  spon- 
taneous charm.  A  friend  of  Liszt's  who 
saw  herat  the  Altenburg  in  i860  writes 
that  she  was  pale,  slender,  wan  and 
thin  to  a  degree,  and  that  she  crept 
through  the  room  like  a  shadow.  Liszt 
was  greatly  concerned  about  her,  for 
the  year  previous  her  brother  Daniel 
had  died  of  consumption,  and  he  feared 
she  might  be  stricken  with  the  same 
malady. 

Daniel's  death  was  a  sad  experience 
through  which  they  passed  together, 
and  which  strengthened  the  ties  of  ten- 

165 


C!)e  Htfots  of 

derness  that  drew  Liszt  to  his  younger 
daughter.  The  son  died  in  his  father's 
arms  and  in  her  presence.  She  had 
nursed  him  devotedly  in  his  last  illness. 
"Cosima  tells  me,"  Liszt  wrote,  before 
he  had  seen  Daniel  on  his  sick-bed, 
''that  the  color  of  his  beard  and  of  his 
hair  has  taken  on  a  touch  of  brownish 
red,  and  that  he  looks  like  a  Christ  by 
Correggio."  Together,  after  Daniel's 
death,  they  knelt  beside  his  bed  "pray- 
ing to  God  that  His  will  be  done —and 
that  He  reconcile  us  to  that  Divine 
will,  in  according  us  the  grace  on  our 
part  to  accept  it  without  a  murmur." 
Such  a  scene  was  a  memory  for  a  life- 
time. Cosima  herself,  in  one  of  her  let- 
ters, gives  a  beautiful  description  of 
her  brother's  passage  from  life.  "He 
fell  back  into  the  arms  of  death  as  into 
those  of  a  guardian  angel,  for  whom  he 
had  been  waiting  a  long  time.  There 
was  no  struggle ;  without  a  distaste  for 
life,  he  seemed,  nevertheless,  to  have 
aspired  ardently  toward  eternity." 
i66 


(Bxtat  Composers 

With  a  pretty  touch  Liszt  gives  an 
idea  of  Cosima's  interest  in  others.  It 
seems  that  a  certain  Frau  Stilke  was 
anxious  to  possess  a  gray  dress  of 
moir6  antique,  and  Liszt  had  per- 
suaded the  Princess  Sayn-Wittgen- 
stein  to  place  the  necessary  sum  for 
buying  it  at  his  daughter's  disposal. 
"In  order  to  estimate  the  cost,"  he 
writes,  "Cosette  has  devised  this  ex- 
cellent formula:  It  should  be  a  dress 
such  as  one  would  give  to  persons  who 
want  adress — only  it  is  necessary  that 
it  should  be  gray  and  of  moir6  antique 
to  satisfy  the  ideal  of  taste  of  the  per- 
son in  question." 

Wagner  does  not  seem  to  have  seen 
Cosima  after  the  Von  Billows'  second 
visit  to  him  at  Zurich  until  they  came 
to  him  for  a  visit  at  Biebrich  during  the 
summer  of  1862.  What  a  contrast  Co- 
sima must  have  seemed  to  poor  Minna 
who,  in  the  same  house  and  but  a  short 
time  before,  had  desecrated  the  manu- 
scriptof"DieMeistersinger"byallow- 

167 


Wtft  Jlotjes  of 

ing  a  bread-ball  to  roll  over  it!  Wag- 
ner's favorable  opinion  of  Hans  and 
Cosima  underwent  a  great  change  dur- 
ing their  sojourn  with  him.  In  a  letter, 
after  speaking  of  Von  Billow's  depres- 
sion owing  to  poor  health,  he  writes: 
"Add  to  this  a  tragic  marriage  ;ayoung 
woman  of  extraordinary,  quite  unpre- 
cedented, endowment,  Liszt's  wonder- 
ful image,  but  of  superior  intellect." 

That  this  woman  who  so  impressed 
Wagner  was  in  her  turn  filled  with 
iadmiration  for  his  gifts  appears  from 
two  letters  which,  during  the  summer 
of  1862,  she  wrote  from  Biebrich  to  her 
father.  In  one  of  these  she  speaks  en- 
thusiastically of  some  of  the  "Tristan" 
music.  The  other  letter  concerns  "Die 
Meistersinger:" 

"The  *  Meistersinger'  is  to  Wagner's 
other  conceptions  what  the  *  Winter's 
Tale '  is  to  Shakespeare's  other  works. 
Its  fantasy  is  founded  on  gayety  and 
drollery,  and  it  has  called  up  the  Nu- 
remberg of  the  Middle  Ages,  with  its 
168 


(threat  Composers 

guilds,  its  poet-artisans,  its  pedants, 
its  cavaliers,  to  draw  forth  the  freshest 
laughter  in  the  midst  of  the  highest, 
the  most  ideal  poetry." 

It  is  evident  that  two  souls  so  sym- 
pathetic could  not  long  remain  in  prox- 
imity without  craving  a  closer  union. 
"Coming  events  cast  their  shadows 
before,"  remarks  one  who  often  was 
present  during  the  Biebrich  visit  of  the 
Von  Billows  to  Wagner. 

How  deeply  Cosima  sympathized 
with  Wagner's  aims  even  then  is  shown 
by  another  episode  of  this  visit.  One 
evening  the  composer  outlined  to  his 
friends  his  plans  for  "Parsifal,"  adding 
that  it  probably  would  be  his  last  work. 
The  little  circle  was  deeply  affected, 
and  Cosima  wept.  Strange  prescience! 
"Parsifal"  was  not  produced  until 
twenty  years  later,  yet  it  proved  to  be 
the  finale  of  Wagner's  life's  labors. 

The  incident  has  interest  from  an- 
other point  of  view.  It  shows  that  Wag- 
ner had  his  plans  for  "Parsifal"  fairjy 

169 


Clje  SLotjes  of 

matured  in  1862,  and  that  it  was  not, 
as  some  critics,  who  see  in  it  a  deca- 
dence of  his  powers,  claim,  a  late  after- 
thought, designed  to  give  to  Bayreuth 
a  curiosity  somewhat  after  the  fagon 
of  the  Oberammergau  "Passion  Play." 
Decadence?  Henry  T.  Finck,  the  most 
consistent  and  eloquent  champion 
Wagner  has  had  in  America,  sees  in 
it  no  falling  off  in  the  composer's  ge- 
nius ;  nor  do  I.  Wagner's  scores  always 
fully  voice  his  dramas,— "Parsifal"  as 
completely  as  any.  The  subject  simply 
required  different  musical  treatment 
from  the  heroic  "Ringof  the  Nibelung" 
and  the  impassioned  "Tristan." 

In  aletter  written  by  Wagner  in  June, 
1864,  occurs  this  significant  sentence: 
"There  is  one  good  being  who  bright- 
ens my  household."  The  "good  being" 
was  Cosima,  who  from  now  on  was  de- 
stined to  fill  his  life  with  the  sunshine 
of  love  and  of  devotion  to  his  art. 

"Since  I  last  saw  you  in  Munich," 
Wagner  writes  to  a  friend,  "I  have  not 
170 


(threat  Compo0et0 

again  left  my  asylum,  which  in  the 
meanwhile  also  has  become  the  refuge 
of  her  who  was  destined  to  prove  that 
I  could  well  be  helped,  and  that  the 
axiom  of  my  many  friends,  that '  I  could 
not  be  helped,'  was  false!  She  knew 
that  I  could  be  helped,  and  has  helped 
me:  she  has  defied  every  disapproba- 
tion and  taken  upon  herself  every  con- 
demnation." 

This  was  written  in  June,  1870,  a  year 
after  Cosima  had  borne  him  Siegfried, 
and  two  months  before  their  marriage. 
For  in  August,  1870,  the  following  an- 
nouncement was  sent  out: 

"We  have  the  honor  to  announce  our 
marriage,  which  took  place  on  the  25th 
of  August  of  this  year  in  the  Protestant 
Church  in  Lucerne. 

Richard  Wagner. 

Cosima  Wagner,  n^e  Liszt. 
*•  August  25, 1870.- 

When,  in  1882, 1  attended  the  first  per- 
formance of  "Parsifal"  in  Bayreuth, 

171 


Cl)e  JLo\)e0  of 

I  had  frequent  opportunity  of  seeing 
Wagner  and  Frau  Cosima.  Probably 
the  best  view  I  had  of  them  together, 
and  of  Franz  Liszt  at  the  same  time, 
was  at  a  dinner  given  by  Wagner  to 
the  artists  who  took  part  in  the  per- 
formances. It  was  in  one  of  the  restau- 
rants near  the  theatre  on  the  hill  over- 
looking Bayreuth.  Wagner's  entrance 
upon  the  scene  was  highly  theatrical. 
All  the  singers  and  a  few  other  guests 
had  been  seated,  and  Liszt,  Frau  Co- 
sima and  Siegfried  Wagner  were  in 
their  places  when  the  door  opened  and 
in  shot  Wagner.  It  was  as  well  calcu- 
lated as  the  entrance  of  the  star  in  a 
play.  On  his  way  to  his  seat  he  stopped 
and  chatted  a  few  moments  with  this 
one  and  that  one.  Instead  of  Wagner 
sitting  at  the  head  of  the  table  and 
his  wife  at  the  foot,  they  sat  together 
in  the  middle.  It  seemed  impossible  for 
him,  though,  to  remain  seated  more 
than  a  few  minutes  at  a  time,  and  he 
was  jumping  up  and  down  and  run- 
172 


<I5reat  Composers 

ning  about  the  table  all  through  the 
banquet.  On  the  other  side  of  Wagner 
sat  Liszt;  on  the  other  side  of  Frau 
Cosima,  Siegfried  Wagner,  then  still 
a  boy.  Among  the  four  there  were  two 
pairs  of  likenesses.  Liszt  was  gray; 
but,  although  Frau  Cosima's  hair  was 
blonde,  and  her  face  smooth  and  fair  as 
compared  with  her  father's,  which  was 
furrowed  with  age  and  boldly  aquiline, 
she  was  his  child  in  every  lineament. 
Moreover,  the  quick,  responsive  light- 
ing up  of  the  features,  her  graceful 
bearing,  her  tact — that  these  were  in- 
herited from  him  a  brief  surveillance 
of  the  two  sufficed  to  disclose.  Com- 
bined with  these  fascinating,  but  after 
all  more  or  less  superficial  character- 
istics was  the  stamp  of  a  rare  intel- 
lectual force  on  both  faces.  No  one  see- 
ing them  together  needed  to  be  told 
that  Cosima  was  a  Liszt. 
Nor  did  any  one  need  to  be  told  that 
Siegfried  was  a  Wagner.  The  boy  was 
as  much  like  his  father  as  his  mother 

173 


Clje  JLotjes  of 

was  like  hers.  Feature  for  feature, 
Wagner  was  reproduced  in  his  son. 
That  there  should  be  no  trace  of  the 
mother,  and  such  a  mother,  in  the  boy's 
face  struck  me  as  remarkable;  but 
there  was  none.  Siegfried  Wagner 
was  a  veritable  pocket  edition  of  his 
famous  father.  His  later  photographs 
as  a  youngman  show  that  much  of  this 
likeness  has  disappeared.  After  din- 
ner, there  were  speeches.  Wagner,  his 
hand  resting  affectionately  on  Liszt's 
shoulder,  paid  a  feeling  tribute  to  the 
man  who  had  befriended  him  early  in 
his  career  and  who  had  given  him  the 
precious  wife  at  his  side.  I  remember 
as  if  it  had  been  but  last  night  the  ten- 
derness with  which  he  spoke  the  words 
die  theure  Gattin. 

It  was  a  wonderful  two  or  three  hours, 
that  banquet,  with  the  numerous  nota- 
bilities present,  and  at  least  two  great 
men,  Liszt  and  Wagner,  and  one  great 
woman,  the  daughter  of  Liszt  and  the 
wife  of  Wagner ;  and  the  experience  is 
174 


d^reat  Composers 

to  be  treasured  all  the  more,  because 
few  of  those  present  saw  Wagner 
again.  Early  in  the  following  year  he 
died  at  Venice.  He  is  buried  in  the 
garden  back  of  Wahnfried,  his  Bay- 
reuth  villa.  He  was  a  great  lover  of 
animals,  and  at  his  burial  his  two  fa- 
vorite dogs,  Wotan  and  Mark,  burst 
through  the  bushes  that  surround  the 
grave  and  joined  the  mourners.  One 
of  these  pets  is  buried  near  him,  and  on 
the  slab  is  the  inscription:  "Here  lies 
in  peace  Wahnfried's  faithful  watcher 
and  friend— the  good  and  handsome 
Mark." 

What  Cosima  was  to  Wagner  is  best 
told  in  Liszt's  words,  written  to  a  friend 
after  a  visit  to  Bayreuth,  in  1872,  when 
his  favorite  child  had  been  married  to 
Wagner  two  years.  "Cosima  still  is  my 
terrible  daughter,  as  I  used  to  call  her, 
— an  extraordinary  woman  and  of  the 
highest  merit,  far  above  vulgar  judg- 
ment, and  worthy  of  the  admiring  sen- 
timents which  she  has  inspired  in  all 

175 


d^reat  Compo0er0 

who  have  known  her.  She  is  devoted 
to  Wagner  with  an  all-absorbing  en- 
thusiasm, like  Senta  to  the  Flying 
Dutchman — and  she  will  prove  his 
salvation,  because  he  listens  to  her  and 
follows  her  with  keen  perception." 
That  Bayreuth  with  Wagner's  death 
did  not  become  a  mere  tradition,  that 
the  Wagner  performances  still  con- 
tinue there,  is  due  to  Frau  Cosima. 
She  is  Bayreuth.  No  woman  has  made 
such  an  impression  on  the  music  of  her 
time  as  she.  Yet  she  is  not  a  musician ! 


THE  END 


14  DAY  USE 

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